HAGL requests securities authorities not to delist shares

HAGL’s farmers processing bananas. Hog farming and banana plantations will be the two main businesses of HAGL this year. Photo vnexpress.net

HÀ NỘI — Hoàng Anh Gia Lai Group (HAGL) has lodged an appeal to securities authorities, requesting that its shares are not delisted from the Ho Chi Minh Exchange (HOSE).

To explain the move, General Director Võ Trường Sơn said the company ran at a loss in three successive years, from 2017 to 2019, and currently had negative undistributed profits.

Under Decree No.155, any company that has incurred losses for three consecutive years is forced to delist its shares from the exchange.

HAGL is concerned that its shares will likely be delisted from HOSE due to the previous three-year losses.

For this reason, HAGL has requested securities authorities not to impose involuntary delisting on its shares for the sake of its shareholders.

“We just want to safeguard shareholders’ interests and avert turmoil in the market,” said the general director.

According to Chairman Đoàn Nguyên Đức, most of the shareholders during 2017-2019 had pulled out and left HAGL.

Current shareholders are faithful investors who have confidence in the company’s business plan in the next two years.

If share delisting is imposed, it would be financially detrimental to the investors.

“The company is picking up and will certainly be profitable, and we are going to reward our faithful shareholders. If our shares are delisted, we would feel bad about disappointing them,” explained the chairman.

Đức pledged that the company would continue to make a profit in the first half of 2022 and stay profitable for the whole year.

If that is not the case, he would accept the imposition of involuntary delisting from securities authorities.

HAGL’s profits were estimated at over VNĐ120 billion (US$5.3 million) in 2021. This year, the figures are expected to rise to VNĐ1.12 trillion ($49.4 million).

The HAGL leader said that the company would spare no effort to reduce total debt to less than VNĐ5 trillion ($220.8 million) by year-end and focus on hog farming and banana plantation.

HOSE has changed HAG’s status from ‘warned’ to ‘controlled’ shares since April 2021 due to HAGL’s after-tax undistributed loss reaching over VNĐ6.3 trillion ($278.1 million) by late 2020.

On April 28, 2021, HAG trading was also restricted to only afternoon sessions.

The restriction was lifted several days later and the share continued to be labelled as controlled from May 4, 2021.