Private lender PG Bank braces for major makeover

PG Bank will hold an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders next month for a major makeover including top tier personnel changes and a charter capital hike.

The October 23, 2023 meeting will confirm a new board of directors and supervisory board, increase the bank’s charter capital, change its trade name as well as the location of the private lender's head-office.

On July 3, PG Bank announced the appointment of Nguyen Phi Hung as chairman for the remainder of the 2020-2025 term, replacing Oliver Schwarzhaupt, who resigned for personal reasons.

The bank also announced the appointment of Pham Manh Thang, former deputy general director of Vietcombank, as its acting general director.

Previously, three unnamed organizations connected with a large corporation completed the transfer of 120 million PGB shares from state-run Petrolimex, thereby holding 40% of the bank's chartered capital.

This shareholding does not allow this group of investors to make decisions at PGBank, which has two authorized representatives holding a 51% stake.

Sources told The Investor that a series of legal entities owned more than 80 million shares of PG Bank at the time of its 2023 AGM.

The legal entities, like Hano-VID Property JSC, Viet Han Trading-Advertising-Construction-Real estate, American Property JSC, Thanh Vinh Constructuon Services Trading, NamDuc Invesment & Infrastructure Development Company Limited, belong to TNG Holdings and MSB group.

Many individuals in this grouping also hold large amounts of PGB shares.

Maritime Bank (MSB) and PGBank have a close relationship. For a long time, both banks were introduced as members in the banking and finance segment of TNG Holdings.

However, TNG Holdings no longer introduces PG Bank as an associate company in the field of finance-banking; and at an April 21 AGM, MSB shareholders did not approve a proposal on merging it with another bank. This indicates that a planned MSB-PG Bank merger is ruled out and that the owners of TNG Holdings have decided to sell PG Bank.

Therefore, it could be that the old group of investors has accepted ceding controlling shares to the new group, and some recent transactions evidence this.

Specifically, in four trading sessions from April 21-27 this year, 87.5 million shares of PG Bank, equivalent to a 29.2% stake, underwent put through transactions on the unlisted public company market UPCoM with a total value of about VND2.44 trillion ($103.9 million), or an average price of VND27,700 ($1.18) per share.

Also, up to 69.2% of PGB shares changed hands within just a few days during an auction.