Nguyen Trung Ha, chairman of the management board of Thien Viet Securities Company (TVS), whose chartered capital is VND43 billion (2.68mio US$), claimed in February that “Goldman Sachs has trusted TVS and chosen it to be its partner in carrying out projects in Vietnam. TVS is the bridge between Goldman Sachs and [Vietnamese] agencies in developing relations and looking for investment opportunities”.
News that TVS was in a tie-up with US-based Goldman Sachs caused a sensation in business circles. Since then, the news has lit up TVS stocks, which have increased in value up to 10 times after several days of listing.
A securities expert said that TVS has not conducted any prominent stock activities, so the selection by Goldman Sachs was “quite strange”.
A TVS representative admitted there’s no official cooperation agreement between Goldman Sachs and TVS but when the former wanted to penetrate the Vietnamese market, TVS is the one who supplied it with information and helped it meet with Vietnamese agencies.
He added that Goldman Sachs president Lloyd C Blankfein who was in Vietnam in January this year told TVS that he wanted to partner with it in a meeting.
“Normally his words carry a confirmation and there’s no need for any signature,” he said.
Le Huy Hoang, TVS founder and now head of the company’s supervision committee, also admitted the two have not inked any official document on partnership.
“Goldman Sachs has announced it will choose TVS to be its strategic partner. As to how strategic, we are not at liberty to say,” he said.
“Any activity [from Goldman Sachs regarding partnering with TVS] needs time [to be carried out] but once an announcement is made, it will generally be done”.
TVS earlier was found to have elected a man as its CEO who was without a labor contract and not on its payroll. Stranger still, the man knew nothing of his appointment.
Only when Pham Kinh Luan received phone calls from friends congratulating him on the new top post last month did he realize he was now the CEO of TVS.
Later, on Friday, TVS announced “it appointed him as CEO on the grounds that he has applied for the CEO position and TVS major shareholders have agreed to the appointment”.
He once applied for the position and worked there for several days before quitting.
He left the job last year – before signing any labor contract with TVS – when he realized he was only a figurehead “without any power to structure the firm’s mechanism, to recruit staff, or to make business plans” as he told Thanh Nien.
TVS founder Hoang admitted Luan was ignorant of a meeting to appoint him on February 13.
Asked why Luan was appointed only as a figurehead, Hoang this month told Thanh Nien that Luan was fundamentally a “hired employee and not a legal representative”.
However, a stock firm director disagreed with what Hoan said. A CEO is responsible for the company mechanism, and holds a very important position, this director explained.
Asked why TVS did not choose another to be its CEO, Hoang replied that Luan has not tendered any letter of resignation so he was on the list and eligible for selection.
Another strange thing is that the State Securities Commission (SSC) allowed TVS to list although it has apparently failed to submit Luan’s criminal record to the SCC. One requirement in applying for a license to list is a criminal record of the CEO. Luan said he has not handed in any criminal record to TVS.
Source: Thanh Nien
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