Media giant ready to lift curtain

Vietnam Multimedia Corporation (VTC) shakeup plan was penned from early 2012.
Last week Minister of Information and Communications (MIC) Nguyen Bac Son signed Decision 28/QD-BTTTT approving VTC’s master plan on restructuring from 2012-2015.

VTC will focus on core businesses of communications, digital content industry, multimedia content and television services and provision of transmission and broadcasting services.

It needs to sharply hike its chartered capital to VND1.5 trillion ($71.5 million) in 2013 from VND650 billion ($31 million) in equity capital.

Son urged VTC to review production and business scope and report to the MIC and Ministry of Finance (MoF), paving the way for competent state agencies decide on ways to hike VTC’s capital.
In the meantime, VTC must soon complete procedures to partake in the project ‘Reforming state-owned enterprises and supporting corporate governance’ at Asian Development Bank (ADB) which would help it radically restructure finance, tackle unsolved financial issues to stabilise business and scale up operation efficiency.

The plan will serve as a base for MIC and MoF to put VTC on the list of businesses seeking ADB preferential loans.

Besides, in 2013 VTC needs to push forward with diverse plans on merger, capital divestiture and dissolution at its member units.
According to VTC executives such activities were kicked-off from 2012.

Accordingly, seven member units had shut down operations, VTC had withdrawn capital from a number of affiliated units and rearranged work for 396 labourers at businesses incurring organisational changes.

In respect to capital divestitures VTC will divest capital from six joint stock companies, revoke the right for capital contribution and take back VTC brand at three other joint stock companies (Hoi An VTC Communications, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Communications and Cable Television, and VTC Lam Dong Cable Television and Communications).

It will mull divesting capital from businesses in which it invests less than 30 per cent of their chartered capital in the third quarter of 2013 and basically perfecting the new operational model in 2013’s fourth quarter.

“VTC will come up with strong measures in handling the approved restructuring plan, striving for sustainable future development,” said VTC chairman Luu Vu Hai.