Bianfishco pledges to pay farmers’ debts in August

>> Debt trading firm to help settle Bianfishco’s debts

>> Bianfishco debt settlement talk comes to deadlock

The pledge was released after a brief meeting between the acting general director Nguyen Van Tri and representatives from dozens of farmers who pitched camps in front of Tri’s villa in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on Sunday, according to newswire Vnexpress.

The two sides also reached an agreement on the repayment so that the farmers will not gather at the villa to shout out via loudspeaker to demand the debts back.

Tri said the many of Bianfishco’s shareholders owe the debts, not just his family alone.

The company will take priority in repaying the debts to the farmers, Vnexpress quoted Tri as saying. The farmers sold their catfish to Bianfishco many months ago without being paid any money until now.

Bianfishco had sent paper notices to local banks that hold stocks mortgaged by the former general director, Pham Thi Dieu Hien – Tri’s wife, so that they can contact the company for final settlement procedures, Tri said.

The firm will hold a press conference upon receiving the new certificate of business registration. The new license will see the Saigon – Hanoi Commercial Bank Joint Stock Bank (SHB) emerge as the largest shareholder with 50 per cent of shares.

Soon the company will have cash to repay the farmers, and join hands with Debts and Assets Trading Corp and other banks to streamline the debt clearance procedures and bring the firm back on track, Tri added.

Earlier, after it was rumored that Bianfisco could not obtain the new certificate of business registration, the farmers started to ramp up their movement with banners and loudspeakers demanding for debt repayment in front of the villa of Tri and Hien.

The stagnancy in issuing the new certificate of business registration is due to the deadlock in debt settlement between the firm and three banks relating to the 25 million shares Dieu Hien had mortgaged to two banks for loans.

The meeting between three parties, Bianfishco, SHB and Vietnam Development Bank (VDB), early this month ended without reaching any deals as the 25 million remaining Bianfishco shares had been mortgaged to a branch of the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) for loans before being brought to the Can Tho branch of VDB as the mortgage for another loan.

The shares had finally been sold to Ho May Co.

The Can Tho City branch of Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB) late last week heated up the situation when it announced that Hien had also mortgaged 8 million shares for a VND80 billion loans without repayment.

Regarding the new development, Tri said the firm had already repaid all the debts it owed to ACB, but Hien had not finalized necessary procedures to reclaim the shares as all were printed in the old format.

As a result, Hien had only sent one written document to ACB to ask the bank to get rid of all the invalid shares (with the old format).

The debt-stricken fishery firm officially restarted operations at its catfish processing and exporting plant in Can Tho-based Tra Noc Industrial Park on May 9, 2012.

The company then still owed VND200 billion to farmers on fish purchase.

The beleaguered seafood company has managed to reduce its bank debts to VND900 billion from VND1.54 trillion ($73.9 million).