Illustrative photo. (Photo source: Tien Phong)
From March 5th to April 29th, 2024, the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court will hold a first-instance trial of Van Thinh Phat Corporation, Saigon Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SCB).
According to the indictment of the Supreme People’s Procuracy, after coming under special control, SCB signed a contract to lease Hoang Quan Valuation Company Limited (Hoang Quan Company) to conduct the valuation of the bank’s assets as of September 30, 2022.
As a result, Hoang Quan Company determined the value of SCB’s assets as of September 30, 2022 to be 295.940 trillion VND, of which 5.946 trillion VND is fixed assets, and 289.994 trillion VND is secured assets for outstanding loans (including loans sold to VAMC, delayed repayment loans, offset loans, and delayed asset sales).
Regarding the loans of Truong My Lan Group – Van Thinh Phat Corporation, there are 1,166 collateral codes for 1,284 loans, and the total value of collateral assets recorded on the books is 1.265.504 trillion VND.
Among them, Hoang Quan Valuation Company valued 726 collateral codes with a reassessed value of 253.561 trillion VND. The remaining codes were not valued, with a book value allocation of 622.476 trillion VND. The reason is that the assets are shares, property rights, real estate without sufficient documents, legal property, and some assets are not within the scope of revaluation.
Of the 726 mentioned collateral assets, 517 codes have sufficient legal collateral/mortgage conditions to be valued when setting aside risk provisions, and the allocated value according to the proposal and/or Mortgage Contract is 179.196 trillion VND.
The remaining 200 collateral assets do not meet the legal requirements (no collateral/mortgage contract, unnotarized mortgage contract, unregistered transactional assets as prescribed, etc.), so SCB cannot handle the assets or meet the conditions to calculate the value for risk provisions.
How did Truong My Lan and her accomplices artificially inflate the value of collateral assets?
According to the indictment, in order to withdraw money from SCB through the trick of creating huge loan files, Truong My Lan directed SCB officials to collude with parties at Valuation Companies, issue legitimate Appraisal Certificates for loan files. In which, SCB’s leadership (including Vo Tan Hoang Van, General Director; Truong Khanh Hoang, Deputy General Director; Nguyen Phuong Hong, Tran Thi My Dung, Deputy General Directors) directed their subordinates (including Le Van Chanh, Le Anh Phuong, Bui Ngoc Son) directly or through intermediaries to contact Valuation Companies, collude, inflate the asset values multiple times, record issuance dates and months of Certificates as required by SCB to legitimately complete the loan procedures.
Investigation results determined that SCB hired 19 Valuation Companies/46 individuals, including Directors, Deputy Directors, Appraisers, and employees to issue 378 related Appraisal Certificates for outstanding loans of the Truong My Lan group. So far, it has been determined that there are 05 Valuation Companies (Tamm Nhin Moi Company, MHD Company, Thien Phu Company, Exim Company, DATC Company)/7 individuals, including Directors, Deputy Directors, Appraisers, and brokerage individuals, who issued 23 legitimate Appraisal Certificates for loans of the Truong My Lan group.
To legitimize the files and withdraw money from SCB, Truong My Lan and her accomplices used many assets that did not meet the legal requirements, artificially inflating their value to be used as collateral for loans. Of the 1,284 loans falling under Truong My Lan’s responsibility, there are 1,166 collateral codes with a book value recorded by SCB, allocated at 1.265.504 trillion VND, but Hoang Quan Valuation Company was able to value only 726/1,166 remaining collateral codes and 440/1,166 codes are not valued because the assets are shares, property rights, real estate without sufficient documents, legal property…
When needing to withdraw legally-backed assets to sell or use for other purposes, Truong My Lan and her accomplices instructed each other to swap and withdraw collateral assets with lower values than the ones withdrawn.
To facilitate the exchange of collateral assets, Truong My Lan and her accomplices at SCB did not make transactions registered as prescribed or disguised them as “property rights” to avoid registering secured transactions.
Of the 1,284 loans falling under Truong My Lan’s responsibility, there are 240 collateral assets with a total recorded value of 487.4515 trillion VND, which were exchanged for 278 collateral assets with a book value of 351.9483 trillion VND; Hoang Quan Valuation Company was able to value only 260/278 collateral assets with a total value of 108.1098 trillion VND.
