VietNamNet Bridge - Sabeco was equitized eight years ago, but the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) still has not transferred the brewery to the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC).

 

As the State now holds 90 percent of stakes in Sabeco, analysts believe that though Sabeco is a joint stock company in name only, it has been operating under the mechanism of a state-owned enterprise.

This can be seen in changes with the company’s key personnel. When involved parties were busy arguing whether Sabeco had to pay tax arrears of trillions of dong, MOIT unexpectedly introduced Vo Thanh Ha as the candidate for the post of chair of the company’s board of directors.

Ha, authorized by MOIT to represent the state’s capital in Sabeco (23 percent of total capital) since October 14, 2015, was later elected as chair of the board of directors and CEO in January 1, 2016.

Before taking office, Ha had been the chief secretariat of the MOIT Office since February 2015. Prior to that, he was deputy chief secretariat of the office and secretary of then MOIT Minister Vu Huy Hoang.

As the State now holds 90 percent of stakes in Sabeco, analysts believe that though Sabeco is a joint stock company in name only, it has been operating under the mechanism of a state-owned enterprise.

The Vietnam Association of Financial Investors (VAFI), in a recent document to MOIT, raised questions related to Sabeco’s equitization and state capital divestment plan.

VAFI questioned why Sabeco deliberately does not list its shares on the bourse as requested by law and commented that the agency which manages state capital ‘does not want transparency because it tries to maintain its benefit in the enterprise’. 

Dang Quyet Tien, deputy head of the Enterprise’s Finance Department, also thinks that Sabeco is operating in a business field which does not need state capital, and therefore, Sabeco should be under SCIC control.

VAFI’s list of questions to MOIT includes one about the appointment of former Minister Vu Huy Hoang’s son - Vu Quang Hai - as a member of the Board of Directors cum the Vice Chief Executive Officer of Sabeco in early 2015, at the age of 28. 

The problem is that MOIT sent an official, who once took a loss of hundreds of billions of dong in another enterprise, to Sabeco.

Sabeco is compared to the goose that lays golden eggs, and no one wants to let it go. However, some sources have found that the company is facing a lot of problems.

Sabeco admitted that it was very difficult to maintain market share in the context of  stiffer competition in the market. Meanwhile, it is meeting problems in key personnel and finding it difficult to look for strategic investors.


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