On April 8, 2020, the Board of directors of Saigon Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) Finance Limited Company (SHBFC) issued a Resolution to submit to SHB Board of directors for approval via the general Meeting of Shareholders on divestment at SHBFC for major foreign strategic partners.
The divestment of SHBFC to a major foreign strategic partner was the direction in line with the market trend and the current operation of the company under the Scheme of the establishment of SHB FC Company, which was approved by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV).
It was known that some foreign partners had asked to cooperate with SHB to promote activities of consumer finance companies. SHB assessed that, when these organisations contributed capital, SHB would take advantage of the implementation experience, management capacity, modern, professional and advanced distribution channel system of these organisations to support SHBFC to break through and compete with other competitors. In addition to the benefits of foreign partners’ experience, SHB also expected to gain massive profits from divestments to strategic foreign investors.
SHBFC had chartered capital of 1 trillion dong, owned 100 percent by SHB. The company was formerly Vinaconex Vietel financial company. Still, due to the structure of the financial company system of the government and SBV, it chose SHB to merge. By the end of 2019, total assets of SHBFC reached nearly 3.3 trillion dong, 2.75 times higher than in 2018, of which balance reached 2.7 trillion dong, 3.8 times higher than in 2018. Profit reached approximately 107 billion dong. The number of customers reached over 460,000 people after nearly 20 months of comprehensive sales deployment of the business network in 34 key provinces. In 2019, SHB FC also mobilised 1.8 trillion dong of valuable papers from 14 professional investment organisations, which were fund management companies and credit institutions.
Regarding the divestment from the financial company, SHB said that since the beginning of 2020, the Bank’s Board of directors had worked with the world’s leading strategic consultants to unify the establishment and deploying three strategic project boards, including Bank Development Strategy Board, Banking Modernisation Board and Project Management and Management Restructuring Project Board to guide development strategy differentiation and sustainability in the medium and long term of the bank as well as the strategy of bank modernisation.
Through the divestment of SHBFC to major foreign strategic partners and development strategy projects, SHB aimed to be a leading modern multi-purpose retail bank in Vietnam to meet international standards, reach the rank in the region and the world.
