Banks to sell collateral assets amid fears of rising bad debts

Era Town project in District 7, HCM City. Some assets auctioned by banks have struggled to find buyers.(Photo: vietnamfinance.vn)

Hanoi - A number of banks have announced plans to auction off their collateral assets in an attempt to speed up bad debt recovery.

On the website of Vietinbank Debt Management and Asset Exploitation Co Ltd (Vietinbank AMC), since the beginning of July, Vietinbank has put six properties up for sale worth at least 223 billion VND (9.6 million USD). This value is based on the initial selling price of the auctioned assets.

The highest starting price is 190 billion VND for the land use rights and ownership of houses and other properties attached to a 3.23ha land situated at the Can Tho Centre complex.

Other properties on sale include 2ha land plot use right at the Tam Hiep industrial park and port logistics at 10 billion VND and nearly 90 hectares of rubber trees and attached buildings in Dak To district, Kon Tum province at over 7.8 billion VND.

A collateral asset including 30 land use rights and land-attached assets with an area of more than five hectares in Ky Son district, Hoa Binh province will also be auctioned to handle debt worth 105 billion VND of Viet Thai Steel Joint Stock Company.

By the end of March, total non-performing loans of Vietinbank increased 56 percent compared to the start of the year, driving the bad debt ratio to 1.83 percent from 1.16 percent.

Since April, BIDV has also put up many properties for sale to resolve bad debts.

Last week, BIDV’s Quang Tri branch put up four assets pledged as security for loans for sale with starting price of 88 billion VND.

This month, BIDV also auctioned collateral assets of Truong Phat Investment Trading and Services JSC. The company’s debts as of February reached nearly 105 billion VND. The collateral asset is the land use right of 2,832m2 land in Ba Dinh district, Hanoi, being auctioned for at least 100.5 billion VND.

Earlier, BIDV’s Gia Dinh branch auctioned 65 apartments in the Era Town project in district 7, HCM City, with the starting price ranging from 2.1 billion VND to 5.5 billion VND per apartment.

Sacombank is also selling buildings, a sports complex and land in Binh Tri Dong district, HCM City, with the starting price of more than 6 trillion VND.

Adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed many companies to their limits and forced banks to put their debts up for auction. However, as the real estate market has been in a difficult period since the latter half of last year, many high-value properties have struggled to find buyers.

Some of BIDV's mortgages have been sold for the third time but have yet to be sold while assets auctioned by Sacombank could not be transferred despite the bank has reduced the selling price.