The road to becoming the richest man thanks to 'price inflation' of Mr. Trinh Van Quyet

The Most Unusual Stock on the Stock Exchange

FLC Faros Construction JSC's ROS is considered the most "unusual" stock on the Vietnamese stock market. This is the factor that helped Mr. Trinh Van Quyet in late 2016 and early 2017 quickly become the richest person on the stock market (TTCK) if calculating assets based on the number and price of shares that Mr. Quyet held at that time.

Within a few years of appearing on the stock exchange, this stock has taken the stock market by storm when it was included in the VN30 basket (30 pillar stocks on the stock market) and then recorded a series of "endless" increases, thereby helping the former Chairman of FLC Group have assets worth tens of thousands of billions of VND.

Since being listed on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE) on September 1, 2016, ROS shares have attracted the attention of investors. With a reference price of VND 10,500/share, equivalent to a market capitalization value at that time of more than VND 4,500 billion, ROS shares have continuously increased very rapidly.

After being listed on the stock exchange, from around October 2016, investors in the stock market recorded a sudden increase in trading volume for ROS shares with 50-70 million units transferred per session.

ROS stock price increased wildly and reached 100,000 VND/share just a few months after being listed, about 10 times higher than the opening price in September 2016.

With a large holding ratio, around mid-November 2016, Mr. Trinh Van Quyet unexpectedly surpassed Mr. Pham Nhat Vuong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vingroup Corporation, and became the richest person on the stock exchange. At that time, Mr. Quyet's assets reached nearly 33,000 billion VND, mainly thanks to nearly 290 million ROS shares.

Specifically, at the price of 115,000 VND/share, Mr. Quyet's assets were about 32,900 billion VND (about 1.47 billion USD). Meanwhile, Mr. Vuong's assets were at 32,300 billion VND.

Ms. Le Thi Ngoc Diep, Mr. Quyet's wife, is also in the top 10 richest people on the stock exchange.

The craziest period of ROS stock was from late September 2017 to early November 2017. Investors were surprised when the stock of a little-known construction company continuously increased by 10 times and then more than doubled to nearly 215,000 VND/share in early November 2017.

*ROS stock fluctuations. (Source: Investing)*

Although ROS shares continued to increase in price to a new peak in 2017, thereby helping Mr. Quyet's assets at times reach over VND50,000 billion, Mr. Quyet could no longer hold the No. 1 position because Mr. Pham Nhat Vuong recorded an increase in the number of Vingroup (VIC) shares held.

During the process of increasing his assets, Mr. Quyet was not recognized by the prestigious Forbes magazine as the next USD billionaire of Vietnam.

Meanwhile, in March 2017, Ms. Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao (then CEO of VietJet) was recognized by Forbes as Vietnam’s next USD billionaire. Then, in 2018, Mr. Tran Dinh Long (HPG) and Mr. Nguyen Dang Quang ( Masan ) were recognized as USD billionaires.

Stocks plummet, delisted

Since the beginning of 2018, FLC Faros shares have started to fall sharply after the company set a target of slightly increasing revenue but after-tax profit decreased sharply compared to 2017 results.

In just one year since its peak in November 2017, this stock has decreased about 5 times. And by the end of 2020, ROS was close to 2,000 VND/share (adjusted price).

However, ROS is still considered a "driven" stock, with strong fluctuations, not following the business situation of the enterprise and causing many people to win or lose heavily.

By early 2022, ROS shares climbed back above VND15,000/share, before falling to VND2,500/share before being delisted on September 5, 2022.

In terms of liquidity, this stock also recorded unusual developments. There were periods like near the end of 2019, when ROS transactions reached thousands of billions of VND, but there was a period after that when the cash flow disappeared and liquidity dripped.

ROS is known as the construction contractor for most of FLC Group’s resort and real estate projects and this enterprise has recorded quite high profits in some years. However, this enterprise has never paid cash dividends.

Faros, formerly Vinh Ha Infrastructure Investment and Construction JSC, was established in 2011 with a charter capital of VND1.5 billion. After many capital increases, ROS has a charter capital of thousands of billions of VND and listed 430 million shares on HoSE in September 2016.

After the delisting, 568 million ROS shares of FLC Faros have not been traded on Upcom like other delisted shares because the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) has to review the documents after the conclusion of the authorities. Many investors have not been able to "exit" their holdings of ROS shares.

According to the investigation results, from April 2014 to September 2016, with the purpose of appropriating investors' money, Mr. Trinh Van Quyet and his two younger sisters Trinh Thi Minh Hue, Trinh Thi Thuy Nga and Ms. Huong Tran Kieu Dung (former vice president of FLC Group and former president of BOS Securities) completed procedures to increase the charter capital from 1.5 billion VND to 4,300 billion VND, equivalent to 430 million shares of Faros Construction JSC (ROS). The actual contribution was only over 1,197 billion VND.

After inflating the charter capital, knowing that Faros Company did not meet the conditions to be listed on HoSE, Mr. Trinh Van Quyet still directed his subordinates to prepare documents to send to State management agencies requesting registration for depository and listing of ROS shares on HoSE.

From September 2016 to March 2022, Mr. Trinh Van Quyet assigned Ms. Hue to use accounts under the name of Trinh Van Quyet and 40 securities accounts with other people's names to buy and sell ROS shares.

Mr. Quyet directed Ms. Hue to sell more than 391 million ROS shares initially formed from fake capital contributions (shares with no guaranteed value) to earn VND 4,818 billion.

The Ministry of Public Security proposed to prosecute former FLC Chairman Trinh Van Quyet . The Ministry of Public Security's Investigation Police Agency issued a conclusion on the investigation of the criminal case and transferred the entire case file to the Supreme People's Procuracy to propose to prosecute Trinh Van Quyet and his accomplices.

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