Richest stock millionaire has over VND6,000 bil in shares

VietNamNet Bridge – The sharp falls of the stock market in 2008 led to the assets of the 100 richest persons to decrease by tens of thousands ofbillion VND. Besides the five who top the 2008 stock millionaire list, others are holding less than VND1tril worth of shares.

On trading floor

2008 was the third consecutive year local newspaper VnExpress announced the list of 100 top stock millionaires. The changes in the asset value of the top 100 reflected clearly the ups and downs of the stock market last year.

The individual who tops the list of 100 stock millionaires announced by the newspaper is holding over VND6tril worth of bonds, which represents just a little decrease in comparison with the No 1 on the 2007 list. Meanwhile, the person at the bottom of the list is just holding VND55.4bil worth of stocks, a50% decrease.

The 2008 list of VIPs sees some big changes compared to last year’s list. Most of them have seen net asset value drop due to the falls of the stock market, not because of changes in the numbers of shares they hold. The global economic recession and the inner difficulties of the national economy have badly affected the ‘health’ of listed companies.

In general, the 100 richest stock millionaires in 2008 held VND37.8tril worth of stocks, down by ½ in comparison with the previous year. Of these richest persons named by VnExpress, there are 34 women who hold bonds worth VND10.27tril.

Dang Thanh Tam, Chairman of Saigon Investment Group (SIG), topped the 2007 list of 100 stock millionaires. By the end of 2007, Tam had nearly VND6,300bil in hand with 30mil KBC shares and 4.2mil ITA.

In 2007, the total assets of the 100 richest stock millionaires reached VND70tril.

By the end of 2008, there were 345 share items listed on Hanoi and HCMCity bourses with the total market capitalisation of VND281tril, or 19% of GDP. The number of companies had increased by 35%, while the indexes of the two bourses slid by nearly 70%. That explains why the market capitalisation value in 2008 dropped by half from 2007.

Of the 60 newcomers on the bourses in the last year, six companies had the chartered capital of over VND500bil like Hoang Anh Gia Lai Joint-stock Company HAG, Vinpearl (VPL) and Saigon Telecom (SGT) and Hoa Sen Group. Chairmen and general directors of newly listed companies prove to be potential candidates for the list of top 100 stock millionaires in 2009.

The information VnExpress used to compile the list of top 100 stock millionaires were the prospectuses for listing and the information released by listed companies at the Hanoi and HCM City bourses.