Who replaced Ms. Truong My Lan to take over FWD Vietnam insurance company?

Ms. Truong My Lan owns 82% of shares at FWD Vietnam Insurance Company Limited - Photo: HUU HANH

The "unfinished" acquisition deal of Ms. Truong My Lan

The second phase of the trial of the Van Thinh Phat case is underway. The latest development is that Ms. Truong My Lan, chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Group, wants to sell a series of shares to raise money to remedy the consequences.

In this list is FWD Vietnam Insurance Company Limited with 82% of contributed capital, with a value of about 492 billion VND, assigned by Ms. Lan to a number of individuals and two companies.

According to research, this insurance company was initially 100% foreign-owned, then acquired by a new group of investors led by Ms. Truong My Lan in March 2022.

The transfer was not completed in terms of legal procedures when the Van Thinh Phat case occurred, Ms. Lan was arrested in October 2022.

Specifically, the financial report of FWD Vietnam Insurance stated that on March 14, 2022, the Ministry of Finance issued Official Letter 2411 approving in principle the transfer of 100% of the capital contribution at the company from FWD Life Insurance Company (Bermuda) Limited to a group of 11 investors, each of whom does not own more than 10% of the shares.

This group of investors is represented by Tan Viet Securities Joint Stock Company (TVSI) as the authorized party from these groups of investors to carry out procedures related to the ownership transfer transaction.

According to the transfer confirmation between FWD Life Insurance Company and TVSI in June 2022, the ownership of FWD Vietnam Insurance has been transferred to a new group of investors.

By April 2022, the company had submitted a transaction report to the Ministry of Finance and requested approval for a change of ownership and an adjustment to its operating license.

However, to date, the Ministry of Finance has not yet approved the adjustment of the license and operations. The enterprise still said it is in the process of providing more information to the Ministry of Finance about this capital transfer transaction.

This incompleteness also explains why the market has two life insurance companies with the same name "FWD Vietnam", but owned by two different owners and only one party is involved in the Van Thinh Phat case.

How is Ms. Truong My Lan's insurance company doing?

FWD Vietnam Insurance, formerly Vietcombank - Cardif Life Insurance Company Limited, was established in 2008. In 2020, this company was acquired by FWD Group and renamed FWD Vietnam Insurance Company Limited.

Therefore, in the 2023 financial report, FWD Vietnam Insurance stated that its relationship with FWD Vietnam Life Insurance is "a subsidiary of the same group" (as of March 21, 2022).

Changing owners continuously in a short period of time, the core scale of FWD Vietnam Insurance is inferior to FWD Vietnam Life Insurance.

In the 2024 semi-annual financial report, insurance premium revenue in the first half of this year reached more than 70 billion VND, down 43% over the same period.

However, the total cost of compensation and insurance payments was nearly 64 billion VND, while the gross profit in this field of FWD Vietnam Insurance was only nearly 6 billion VND after half a year.

	Insurance revenue	Profit after tax
2018	586	32.7
2019	422	-37.9
2020	513	89.9
2021	423	84.4
2022	351	35
2023	233	69
June 2024	70	14.9

Meanwhile, financial revenue, mainly contributed by bank interest, was higher, reaching more than VND80 billion in 6 months.

FWD Vietnam Insurance's insurance revenue has been declining since 2020. In 2019, before FWD Group took over, insurance revenue still reached more than VND420 billion.

By 2023, this core business segment will bring in revenue of only 233 billion VND, a sharp decrease compared to 351 billion VND in 2022.

At the end of June 2024, the total assets of the insurance company in Ms. Truong My Lan's ecosystem reached 2,500 billion VND, with owner's equity of 600 billion VND.

Looking at FWD Vietnam Life Insurance Company Limited, a business under FWD Group, it recorded total assets of nearly VND 18,700 billion as of mid-2023, with equity of nearly VND 11,800 billion.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/ai-da-thay-ba-truong-my-lan-thau-tom-cong-ty-bao-hiem-fwd-viet-nam-20241002152836194.htm