It is resulted from the merger with Hanoi Building Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Habubank-HBB) .
SHB last month proposed Can Tho City People’s Committee to buy debts and deal with financial issues and restructuring progress of Bianfishco, online portal CafeF quoted a source from the Ministry of Finance as saying.
In documents sent to Can Tho City government, SHB said it wants to be the organizer in implementing the entire restructuring of Bianfishco’s operations, including financial arrangements, since it has become a major shareholder of the firm after the merger with HBB.
Specifically, according to independent auditing results of Ernst & Young Vietnam Co (E&Y) on reviewing the operation of HBB, HBB has contributed capital to buy five million Bianfishco shares at the price of VND16,000 each, worth VND80 billion, made term purchase for 25 million shares valued at VND125 billion, and investment mandate to buy nine million shares totaling VND62 billion.
As of February 29, 2012, HBB has held 39 million shares of Bianfishco worth VND267 billion, equaling to 78 percent of Bianfishco’s chartered capital.
After receiving the document from SHB, Can Tho City People’s Committee has sent document and asked for approval from the prime minister for this issue.
After studying the proposal, Department of Corporate Finance has presented to Ministry of Finance on the answers of the Government Office.
Accordingly,the ministry agreed for SHB to participate in the restructuring of Bianfishco to facilitate Bianfishco soon stabilise production and ensure the rights of workers, farmers and other stakeholders at the maximum.
As Debt and Asset Trading Corp (DATC) under the ministry is also working with Bianfishco and some creditors to build restructuring plan for Bianfishco, the ministry proposed the government office to consider and report the prime minister to let DATC and SHB coordinate with other creditors to study and agree restructuring plan for Bianfishco.
Debt-stricken Bianfishco on May 9, 2012, officially restarted operations at its catfish processing and exporting plant in Can Tho-based Tra Noc Industrial Park.
Tran Kim Minh, CEO of the Transport Engineering Construction and Business Investment Stock Company 584 (584 Group), in early May said it would pump in VND500 billion as liquid capital to help Bianfishco stabilize its production.
But savior itself currently had a VND1.93 trillion liabilities, around 78 percent of its total assets.
The DATC one month earlier said it was considering providing a maximum sum of VND250 billion (US$12 million) to handle the debt of beleaguered seafood company Bianfishco, its CEO Pham Quang Thanh told Tuoi Tre.