VietNamNet Bridge – Mergers and turnovers in top management are the two outstanding trends in the banking sector of Vietnam this year.

At the shareholders' meeting of the Saigon-Hanoi Commercial JS Bank (SHB) on April 19, the Board of Directors dismissed old board members and elected new ones for tenures of 2012 to 2017.

Board members Dam Ngoc Bich and Pham Hong Thai were dismissed. Ms. Ngoc Bich had asked to resign for personal reasons, while Thai – a representative of the Vietnam Coal-Minerals Corporation  –  withdrew from the board in accordance with his company’s suggestion.

Also at this meeting, shareholders approved the election of Mr. Do Quang Huy as a new member of the board of directors. Huy is working for the T&T Corporation, where the Chairman of SHB – Mr. Do Quang Hien - is also the Chairman and CEO.

Although Huy does not hold any shares of SHB, T&T Corporation does holds over 60 million shares, equivalent to 6.85 percent of SHB’s capital. It recently registered to buy an additional 36.3 million shares of SHB.

At the shareholders' meeting of Techcombank on April 19, the representative of HSBC withdrew from the board of directors, replaced by former Vice Chair of the State Securities Commission, Mr. Nguyen Doan Hung.

According to Techcombank, Hung is an independent member of the board of directors. HSBC did not nominate new candidates to participate in the bank’s board in the new term since the Technical Assistance Agreement between HSBC and Techcombank will end in June.

During the annual shareholders’ meeting on April 19, Maritime Bank submitted the merger plan with the Mekong Development Bank (MDB). In preparation for the merger, the bank’s Board of Directors and Supervisory Board nominated candidates who are from or are related to Maritime Bank.

Earlier, in the 2014 shareholders' meeting of the NamA Bank held in late March, the bank’s Chair, Ms. Nguyen Thi Xuan Loan, Vice Chair Huynh Thanh Chung and board member Mr. Tran Anh Tuan resigned.

NamA Bank has elected two additional members of the Board of Directors - Mr. Nguyen Quoc Toan and Mr. Tran Ngo Phuc Vu. Previously, Vu was the Chief Executive Officer from April 2013.

Sacombank has also appointed two vice directors, bringing the total number of deputy directors who were appointed this year to four. Currently, Sacombank is the bank with the highest number of deputy directors - 20.

Sacombank recently approved the resignation of its chair, Mr. Pham Huu Phu, and elected Vice Chair Kieu Huu Dung as Chairman from March 24.

The shareholders' meeting of Kien Long Bank has also recently approved the resignation of board member Tran Phat Minh and elected two new members – Mr. Vo Van Chau and Ms. Nguyen Thuy Quynh Huong.

Minh resigned for personal reasons. Currently he is the largest individual shareholder in the two banks of Kien Long and Sacombank, with 3.28 and 4.8 percent.

In the same trend of changing high-level personnel, Mr. Pham Van Bu will no longer be Chair of DongA Bank (EAB), as decided at the annual shareholders' meeting on April 26. Bu has held the EAB Chairmanship since 2007. He does not hold any shares of EAB but has great influence at the bank.

The reason for Bu’s resignation is that he will retire and no longer be the representative of the contributed capital of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee in EAB. The successor will be Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hung, Deputy Director of the HCM City Party Committee Office.

Eximbank has released the minutes of the counting of votes on shareholder opinion on the election of new members of the Board of Directors.

The three candidates include Mr. Le Hung Dung, Mr. Pham Huu Phu and Mr. Dang Phuoc Dua.

Na Son