Vietnam’s powerful mogul Nguyen Duc Kien arrested
Tuesday, August 21, 2012, 09:30 GMT+7
One of Vietnam’s most powerful tycoons Nguyen Duc Kien - a household name in the financial market and football industry - was arrested yesterday evening over unannounced economic reasons, sending shockwaves across the country.
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The arrest was confirmed by the General Police Department of Crime Prevention under the Ministry of Public Security.
The multi-millionaire Kien is co-founder of Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB), one of Vietnam’s largest banks. He is currently one of the 20 richest persons in Vietnam based on stock reports.
The arrest came out of the blue and shocked the public since Kien regularly appeared on the media to comment on football. In Vietnam, he is popularly known as "bau Kien" or “[football] manager Kien”.
Kien, who was living at Alley No.27 on Xuan Dieu Street in Hanoi’s Tay Ho District, was arrested on Monday evening for alleged violations in business activities, a leader of the General Police Department of Crime Prevention told Tuoi Tre. But this senior policeman declined to elaborate.
The Investigation Police Agency under the Ministry of Public Security also conducted a one-hour search at his residence in Hanoi on Monday night. The police agency said they had seized several documents related to Kien’s violation.
Just hours before his arrest - on late Monday afternoon - Kien met with Tuoi Tre for an interview about issues arisen from the to the 2012 football season in Vietnam at the Hilton Hotel in Hanoi.
The 48-year-old man is also deputy chairman of the Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Co (VPF) and chairman of Hanoi Football Club.
He is also a founding shareholder in several other commercial banks such as Kien Long Commercial Joint Stock Bank and the Vietnam Export-Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank.
Besides being a banking tycoon, Kien is well-known as a football manager and a philanthropist.
Stock market down
News of his arrest sent the stock market to the bottom in a matter of hours.
The benchmark of Vietnamese stock market, VN-Index of Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, and the indicator of Hanoi Stock Exchange, HNX-Index, dropped 15.24 points (3.49 percent) and 3.01 points (4.26 percent) on Tuesday morning, due to the arrest.
The shares of Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (coded ACB) and Vietnam Export-Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank (coded EIB) saw 1 million shares and 2 million shares unsold at their floor prices respectively.
All stocks in the newly launched HNX30 almost hit the floor simultaneously.
ACB: It is Kien's personal issue
“It is a personal issue (of Kien),” said Nguyen Thanh Toai, deputy general director cum spokesman of ACB.
“Kien is no longer a major shareholder, nor a board member, and are not involved in the bank’s board of executives.”
"The detention of Kien is the decision of the authorities so it does not affect the normal operation of the bank," Toai stressed.
Toai told Tuoi Tre that since Kien is no longer a major shareholder, Kien is not obliged to disclose information about the ACB shares owned by him and his family members.
Kien is holding less than 5 percent of ACB shares, Toai said.
A brief biography of Nguyen Duc Kien:
Nguyen Duc Kien, who was born in 1964, studied at the Military Technical University, under the Ministry of Defense, from 1980-1981, and later studied at the Zalkamate Military Technical University in Hungary from 1981-1985.
For the following 10 years he was a staff member at the Vienam General Garment-Textile Corp.
In 1994 Kien, along with his friends Tran Mong Hung, Pham Trung Cang, and Trinh Kim Quang, founded Asia Commercial Bank, or ACB. Currently, the bank is the leading bank in Vietnam’s group of non-state commercial banks.
From 1994-2008 Kien was the deputy chairman of ACB and took over as the CEO of the bank from 2004 to 2006.
ACB’s Annual Report 2011 said he used to serve as the chairman of the bank’s Investment Council. He was then a permanent member of the ACB’s Human Resources Committee and a member of ACB’s Risk Management Committee.
Also according to ACB’s report, Kien was the elected Chairman-cum-CEO of the Board of Asia Financial Group which was established in 2009 in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem District.
In 2008, Kien and several other ACB founders withdrew from the ACB board of directors and formed the ACB Board of Founders, consisting of 6 members, in which Kien was the vice president and Tran Mong Hung served as president.
Before leaving the ACB Board, Kien, his wife, and three younger brothers held a 9.71 percent stake in the bank.
Among the five, Kien held 3.75 percent, and his wife, Dang Ngoc Lan, held 4.11 percent.
Assuming this ratio has remained unchanged , the ACB shares that Kien and his wife hold are currently worth more than VND1.9 trillion ($91.2 million), placing them on the list of top 20 richest people on the Vietnamese stock market.
In recent years, ACB has invested in other banks, such as Eximbank, VietBank, and Dai A Bank.
Kien also previously held stakes in Kien Long Bank, but he has since sold them all.
When information about the acquisition of Ho Chi Minh City-based Sacombank was first released, Kien was one of the first names mentioned, alongside with Tram Be. However, his name vanished when once the deal was complete.
Multi-disciplinary entrepreneurship
In addition to banking, Kien has also invested in the field of football. Currently he is the chairman of Hanoi ACB football club.
Besides banking and football, Kien also put money into many other areas such as tourism and garments. As testament to his diverse business involvement, he used to serve as chairman of the Caltex Lubricants Joint Venture and Vice President of KFC Vietnam Joint Venture.
In the tourism sector, Kien is member of the board of directors of Cholon Tourism Service Co and Thien Minh Tourism Joint Stock Co.
In 2011, Thien Minh gained notoriety for its $45 million purchase of the Victoria hotel chain.
To be updated...
