VietNamNet Bridge - The race of candidates for ‘hot seats’ at commercial banks is heating up as the shareholders’ meeting season has begun.

Banks' NPL by the end of September 2016

A series of joint stock banks will hold shareholders’ meetings in April, while large banks such as Sacombank, Eximbank, Vietcombank, BIDV and SHB have announced plans to strengthen the banks’ management boards.

BIDV’s shareholders’ meeting is scheduled to take place on April 22. Since Tran Bac Ha retired in September 2016, the post of the chair of the bank remains vacant. The bank has been put under management by Tran Anh Tuan, a member of the board of directors.

Unlike other banks, the state’s ownership ratio in the bank is high, at 95.28 percent. Therefore, in order to take the post as chair of the bank, one must get approval from the State Bank as the representative of the state’s capital.

The bank on March 28 released a notice that shareholders with 10 percent of charter capital or more for the last six consecutive months can run for the posts. 

Vietcombank now has two large shareholders holding more than 10 percent of charter capital – Mizuho Bank (15 percent) and the State Bank 77.11 percent.

The struggle for ‘hot seats’ at Eximbank, which has been always tense in the last few years, may come to an end after the 2017 shareholders’ meeting, slated for April 21.

As groups of large shareholders cannot not find a common voice and prolonged conflicts cannot be settled, the bank had to organize shareholders’ meetings twice last year, and both of them failed. The plan to organize another meeting was delayed as the bank had to wait for the State Bank’s approval for its restructuring project.

Eximbank now has eight members of the board of directors and it plans to select three more members.

Sources said that besides Vietcombank and Sumitomo, the two large shareholders, Au Lac Group also attempted to send its staff to the board of directors.

In late 2015, Le Minh Quoc and Ngo Thanh Tung from Au Lac Group were appointed as the members of the board of directors. Quoc has been holding the post of the chair of board of directors since then.

Meanwhile, bankers have guessed that Dang Van Thanh, the founder of Sacombank, may return to the bank.

To date, two groups of investors have sent word to the State Bank intimating that they are ready to join the process of restructuring Sacombank. These include Novaland and a group of investors from Everscore Group, Redsun Capital Ltd and Dang Van Thanh, who is now chair of Thanh Thanh Cong Group.

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