Real estate tycoon questioned by police

An official of the Ministry of Public Security’s Investigative Police Agency, who did not want to be named, said Monday that they were working on “verifying” information regarding Quyet and have not taken legal action against the parties involved. The representative did not elaborate.

Some local reports said Quyet has been banned from leaving the country starting March 26 for a month, but the official did not confirm or elaborate on this.

Quyet was to attend the Vietnam Investment Forum in London on March 30 and give a closing speech as the Chairman of Bamboo Airways at the end of the session.

A roadshow introducing FLC’s ecosystem including real estate, aviation and tourism was to be held the same afternoon.

The official said Quyet’s attendance at these two events was still possible.

Quyet has a large stock portfolio and was once one of the wealthiest people on the Vietnamese stock exchange.

The shares of FLC and related companies plunged Monday morning after the company was fined for flouting disclosure regulations.

At the end of Monday session, the group had a surplus of nearly 150 million shares selling at its floor price. FLC of real estate developer FLC and ROS of FLC Faros Construction each had a surplus of nearly 60 million shares.

Quyet began his career as a lawyer in 2001, when he and his associates established the SMiC Law Office, which later became the SMiC Law Firm. He also established a number of businesses and the FLC brand was formed in early 2010 after merging all of them.

Bamboo Airways, founded by FLC, entered the aviation market in 2019.

FLC’s charter capital stood at VND10.5 trillion (over $459 million) in early 2021, after more than 10 years of operation.

As of January 2022, the FLC chairman owned over 215 million FLC shares, equivalent to approximately 30 percent, as well as tens of millions of stocks in related companies like ROS.

In January this year, Quyet was fined VND1.5 billion ($65,800) and banned from trading in the securities market for five months for failing to disclose plans to sell shares in his company.

He sold 74.8 million FLC shares Jan. 10, but the SSC only received notice of the sale by the evening of that day though regulations require a notification three working days in advance.

It was the second time that Quyet was fined by the SSC for the same offence. In November 2017, he was fined VND65 million for selling 57 million FLC shares without proper notice.