Companies break their promises to shareholders.

Every shareholder meeting season, many companies paint a rosy picture of growth, promising breakthrough revenue and record profits. But when the fiscal year ends, many plans remain only on paper.

Tracking business plans is a "habit" for some investors, but this indicator is inaccurate in many businesses - Illustration by AI: QUANG ANH

It's worth noting that some companies have repeatedly broken promises to shareholders for many years.

"They made many promises, but broke just as many."

In 2025, Phat Dat Real Estate Development Joint Stock Company (PDR) recorded after-tax profit of approximately VND 514 billion, a significant increase compared to the previous year, but only achieving nearly 71% of the planned target.

Notably, in 2024, PDR also set a high target of 880 billion VND but actually only achieved 155 billion VND.

In 2022, the company failed to meet its targets, achieving a profit of just over 1,160 billion VND, significantly lower than the planned target of nearly 2,900 billion VND. However, PDR still fulfilled its commitments to shareholders in scattered years, such as 2020, 2021, and 2023.

Notably, Kinh Bac Urban Development Corporation (KBC) has missed its targets for six consecutive years. In 2025, KBC promised shareholders a consolidated after-tax profit of 3,200 billion VND, but actually only achieved 2,208 billion VND, equivalent to nearly 70%. This marks the sixth consecutive year the company has failed to meet its financial targets.

The problem is that during the period 2022-2024, KBC continuously developed ambitious business plans, aiming for after-tax profits ranging from several trillion VND, but the achievement rate remained low.

In 2024 alone, the company only achieved 423 billion VND in profit, equivalent to just over 10% of the planned 4,000 billion VND. Several other companies were also "named" on this list, such as KOS, SJS...

In the construction sector, companies such as Deo Ca Infrastructure Investment Joint Stock Company (HHV), Hoa Binh Construction Group Joint Stock Company (HBC), Ho Chi Minh City Infrastructure Investment Joint Stock Company (CII)... have all seen their business plan completion rates fluctuate from around 91% down to 50% over the past six years.

Besides the "promises high, delivery low" phenomenon, the market also exhibits the opposite: setting low targets to easily exceed them.

Some companies, such as Ca Mau Fertilizer (DCM) and PTSC (PVS), consistently exceed their targets, demonstrating positive business results. However, if this continues, the announced plans will gradually lose their value as a benchmark for investors.

According to experts, in essence, the business plan presented at the general meeting is not merely a guideline, but actually a "promise" from the management to shareholders and their capital.

This is also an important aspect, put to a vote and approved by a majority of shareholders, thereby providing a basis for investors to assess the company's growth prospects. For many years, monitoring the annual plan has become a "habit" for some investors, as an indicator for investments.

Be wary of unrealistic business plans.

Speaking to Tuổi Trẻ newspaper, Mr. Truong Dac Nguyen, Investment Director of Blue Horizon Financial, said that over the years, the situation of businesses failing to meet their business plans is not an isolated incident but quite common in many places. Besides some real estate companies, this list also includes several construction and plastics companies, among others.

According to Mr. Nguyen, the unique characteristics of the real estate and construction industries, which are heavily dependent on input costs and project timelines, make planning unstable. Consistently failing to meet targets for many years in a row still indicates limitations in forecasting and management capabilities.

Mr. Luong Duy Phuoc, Director of Analysis at Kafi Securities, believes that investors should not only focus on whether a company fulfills its plan, but also on the quality of planning and the level of consistency in execution.

There are cases where targets are not met due to objective factors such as input fluctuations, commonly seen in sectors like real estate, construction, or industrial parks—fields heavily dependent on legal aspects, project timelines, material prices, labor costs, and market cycles. For this group, investors need to clearly distinguish between shortfalls that are temporary and those reflecting limitations in forecasting capabilities.

Based on this reality, Mr. Phuoc recommends that investors look back at the past 3-5 years to assess how businesses develop their plans: realistic, overly ambitious, or overly cautious. A trustworthy business doesn't necessarily need to always exceed its targets, but rather needs reasonable forecasts, transparency in explanations, and consistency in execution.

Mr. Nguyen also noted the motivation behind raising capital with the issue of setting high targets. Setting high revenue and profit targets is not only to create an image of growth but also to serve plans for issuing shares and borrowing from banks. These bright "profit pictures" sometimes become a tool to stimulate expectations, thereby supporting stock prices in the short term.

Therefore, investors also need to be cautious of business plans that are overly ambitious, especially those with excessively high but unfounded growth targets, which can lead to investment mistakes.

Real estate sector lags behind in meeting business plan targets.

Statistical data from 187 listed companies over six years, including those that were once large but have declined in market capitalization, reveals a noteworthy fact: not all industries maintain discipline in executing their plans.

At the bottom of the list in terms of plan completion rate is the "real estate management and development" sector. The sector as a whole achieved an average of about 90% of its plan, but the residential real estate group alone only reached about 86%.

According to experts, unlike the banking industry, where many institutional shareholders and investment funds have high oversight capabilities, the shareholder structure in some businesses is often dispersed, mainly consisting of individual investors.

This group tends to focus more on short-term stock price movements than on long-term performance, resulting in insufficient oversight pressure on management.

Based on this reality, Mr. Truong Dac Nguyen recommends that investors need to change their approach when evaluating businesses; the level of plan completion each year should be considered an important criterion reflecting the credibility and capabilities of the leadership team.

BINH KHANH - QUANG ANH

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/doanh-nghiep-hua-leo-voi-co-dong-20260425082701096.htm