Gold Tycoon
Ba Đình Consulting and Construction Investment Joint Stock Company (abbreviated as Ba Đình Company) is headquartered at 455 Hoang Hoa Tham street, Lieu Giai ward, Ba Dinh district, Hanoi. This company operates in the fields of investment, construction,
real estate
trading, and mineral exploitation since the early 2000s, and has been in operation for nearly 24 years.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors and the legal representative is Mr. Nguyen Tien Trung (born in 1971), residing in Hanoi. He is the largest shareholder of Ba Dinh Company with a controlling stake. His wife, Ms. Duong Thi Thu Huyen (born in 1976), also participated in the management of the company for a period of time. However, she later withdrew all her capital and became a “former shareholder”, similar to Mr. Nguyen Quoc Vinh (born in 1974).
Owner of a series of gold and mineral mines, Nguyen Tien Trung is a secretive tycoon who has never appeared in the media.
Like the slogan “Constantly expanding, constantly reaching out” displayed on Ba Dinh Company’s website, Mr. Nguyen Tien Trung had a grand ambition early on, believing that the “playing field” should not be limited to the domestic market but should penetrate deep into the international market, which is the mission they pursue.
A license for overseas investment from the time they were still “newbies” in the business world was the prerequisite for Mr. Nguyen Tien Trung’s company to be able to build a mineral exploitation project that made their name in Laos. That was the project to exploit and process gold and accompanying minerals at the Sakai mine (capital Vientiane), which had a scale of 285ha with a total investment capital of 25 million USD (equivalent to over 633 billion VND at the current exchange rate).
Following the success of the Sakai gold mine, Ba Dinh Company ventured to the other side of Africa and continued to develop a project to exploit and process gold and non-ferrous metals in Mubende district, 140km west of Kampala city in Uganda. The total investment capital for the project amounted to 50 million USD, according to the company’s introduction.
Back in the country, Ba Dinh Company is the author behind 4 extremely popular mineral projects, including 2 projects to exploit and process gold ore in A Vao commune, A Bung commune, Dakrong district, Quang Tri province; 1 primary gold mine in Minh Luong commune, Van Ban district, Lao Cai province; and 1 white limestone mine in Chau Cuong commune, Quy Hop district, Nghe An province.
Mr. Nguyen Tien Trung also continued to initiate and put into operation two copper smelting, coke, and metal processing plants in the Southern Industrial Zone of Yen Bai province, in Van Tien commune, Yen Bai city, Yen Bai province.
With such an impressive project portfolio, many people speculate that the business capacity and influence of Mr. Nguyen Tien Trung are substantial, if not second to none. The truth about the potential of this gold tycoon is a mystery, but it is known that Trung later did not hide his ambition to conquer the capital’s real estate market by initiating a series of large-scale housing projects with prime locations that were highly sought after by investors.
The Long Slide
However, not receiving the same favorable conditions as in the gold mining sector, the certain experience gained when participating in the investment and construction of some large apartment projects such as Haicatex 93 Linh Nam, New Horizon City 87 Linh Nam, Thuong Dinh Residence 277 Nguyen Trai… was not enough for gold tycoon Nguyen Tien Trung to avoid making mistakes that caused a decade-long slide for the company.
A typical example is the project for the Hotel, Housing, Office for Rent Mixed-Use Building Hattoco at 110 Tran Phu, Ha Dong district (Hattoco Ha Dong project), with Ba Dinh Company as the investor. According to research, Hattoco Ha Dong was started in 2009, with a total investment of about 900 billion VND and a land area of nearly 5,000m2.
After 15 years, Hattoco Ha Dong is still unfinished, a cold, rough block of concrete that has continued to tarnish the appearance of the second most populous district in the city. Steel bars are rusted, the construction site is empty of workers, but more importantly, the investor has not hesitated to collect money from customers many years ago, averaging 50-70% of the value of the apartments.
Promising to hand over the houses in 2014, but more than 10 years later, Ba Dinh Company still has not fulfilled its promise, causing many customers to suffer because they have lost money without having a place to live and have had to borrow money to make a living. The situation of gullible customers taking to the streets with banners and slogans to “demand their houses” has become common here, but the response has been indifference and avoidance from the investor.
The lack of responsibility of Ba Dinh Company in particular and their partners in general also continued to be shown through the development process of Thanh An Tower project (new name Manhattan Tower), number 21 Le Van Luong, Thanh Xuan district. Initially, the Thanh An Tower project was invested by Thanh An General Company (
Ministry of Defense
), which was allocated land in 2009 with a total land area of 4,182m2, of which the construction area was 2,104m2, with the goal of building a 30-story apartment and commercial complex.
Thanh An Tower project (later renamed Manhattan Tower) abandoned amidst the most expensive area of Hanoi.
After being allocated land, Thanh An General Company did not implement the project itself, but instead cooperated with Ba Dinh Company. The two giants “joined forces”, and it was thought that the project would have a successful conclusion; however, unexpectedly, Thanh An Tower suddenly became a “dead” project in the heart of the city, while at the same time concealing a series of violations related to planning and planning adjustments, which were exposed by the Ministry of Construction Inspectorate in the third quarter of 2022.
With the same scenario as Hattoco Ha Dong, the “sluggish” progress made some Thanh An Tower customers lose patience and they filed a joint complaint with the Ministry of Defense, requesting the competent authorities to clarify the issue of lax land management, capital management, and state assets, the violations in project management, and the responsibility of Thanh An General Company in selecting a business partner; strictly and decisively handle the violations of the investor; reclaim the project from Thanh An General Company and Ba Dinh Company and hand it over to other units with sufficient capacity to implement it; and clarify the responsibility of the banks for lending and disbursing loans to customers.
After verifying the above contents, recently, the Criminal Investigation Agency of the Ministry of Defense has initiated criminal proceedings for violating regulations on land management at the Thanh An Tower project, which has become a topic of discussion in the past week.
It is known that the Thanh An Tower project was financed by Saigon – Hanoi Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SHB), and the joint investor Ba Dinh Company – Thanh An General Company had “assigned” all the current property rights, assets formed in the future, and the development rights of the project formed in the future to SHB – Kinh Do Branch starting from December 2017 (the first year the project was granted a
