SeABank appoints new acting general director

Private Vietnamese creditor SeABank has appointed Le Quoc Long as its acting general director in charge of operations from Tuesday, replacing Loic Faussier who resigned due to personal reasons.

Long, born in 1965, holds a bachelor's degree in finance and accounting from the University of Finance and Accountancy, and a law major from the Hanoi Law University. He has more than 30 years of experience in banking and finance, including 18 years as deputy general director of SeABank.

Long joined SeABank in 2005 as deputy general director in charge of credit and risk governance, and concurrently held many other important management positions at the bank.

With the appointment of Le Quoc Long, SeABank's board of general directors currently has nine members.

SeABank is listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) as SSB.

In the first half of 2023, SeABank reported total revenue of nearly VND12.11 trillion ($511.26 million), up 18% year-on-year, and pre-tax profit of VND2.02 trillion ($85.12 million), down 28%.

As of June 30, the bank's assets stood at over VND245.21 trillion ($10.35 billion), up 5.96% compared to the beginning of the year, of which outstanding loans to customers reached VND161.89 trillion ($6.84 billion), up 5.15%.

In early July, the bank said it would sell nearly 95 million shares to the Norwegian Investment Fund (Norfund) for about VND1.2 trillion ($50.5 million).

The plan for the private placement of 95 million shares, equivalent to 4.63% of SeABank’s total floating shares, to a foreign investor had been approved by the bank’s board of directors, a bank representative told The Investor on July 5, affirming that “this is a successful deal”.

The expected offering price will not be lower than the book value of VND12,861 ($0.54) per share and not exceed 120% of the average price of SSB shares over the previous 30 sessions, at VND37,032 ($1.56) per share. The shares offered to Norfund will be subject to a one-year transfer restriction. The placement is expected to be made this year or at a time decided by the board of directors.

Along with the private placement, SeABank has temporarily locked the foreign ownership ratio at 1.2877% to ensure that its foreign ownership "room" after issuance does not exceed 5%.

SSB closed the Monday session at VND29,150 ($1.23) per share.