Standard Chartered quits ACB

Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited and Standard Chartered APR Limited were the two largest strategic shareholders of ACB. Source: Zing.vn

The engagement between Standard Chartered and ACB started in 2005 when Standard Chartered spent $22 million buying 8.56 per cent of ACB’s shares for more than six times the initial price (at VND62,000), according to Zing.vn.

The two sides signed a comprehensive technical support agreement. Besides training and upgrading human resources, ACB upgraded its banking technology, including servers, software, and ATM machines with Standard Chartered’s help. 12 years ago, these were breakthroughs in the banking sector.

Moreover, Standard Chartered acquired all shares of International Finance Corporation (IFC) in ACB (6.16 per cent) and 7.1 per cent of the bank’s convertible bonds in 2008 to become the largest strategic shareholder.

Since then, Standard Chartered has been constantly sending officers to work at ACB in the fields of credit and debit cards, risk management, human resources administration, even crisis management.

Before the entrance of Standard Chartered, ACB accommodated a number of foreign shareholders, including Connaught Investors Ltd. (under Jardine Matheson Group), LG Merchant Banking Corp. (under LG Group), and Dragon Financial Holdings Ltd. (DC) since 1996.

In 2004, IFC bought out all the shares of LG Group to become a shareholder of ACB. Thus, the three foreign shareholders owned 24 per cent of ACB’s total shares before Standards Chartered’s entry.

At ACB’s annual shareholders’ meeting at the end of 2016, Julian Fong Loong Choon, the representative of Standard Chartered, resigned. He said that ACB had been strong enough to develop itseft without Standard Charter's helps.

One year later, on January 9, 2018, Standard Chartered APR Limited and Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited sold a total of 154 million ACB shares (at around VND40,000 apiece) and gained over VND6 trillion ($264.3 million) after 12 years of engagement.

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