Van Thinh Phat chairwoman says collateral at SCB undervalued, seeks fresh appraisal

The 68-year-old chairwoman of property developer Van Thinh Phat is on trial for several crimes including embezzlement as she and her accomplices illegally borrowed 1,284 loans from SCB over a decade until October 2022 when she was arrested.

The loans had 1,116 properties and other assets as collateral, but an independent asset appraisal company, Hoang Quan, was able to value only 726 of them.

Hoang Quan could not assess the rest because they lacked legal papers.

Lan requested the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday for an appraisal of these assets, which she claimed had been appraised by some companies when they were first used as collateral at the bank.

Lan admitted most lacked papers, some because they had been obtained from three banks were merged into SCB.

She said she could collaborate with the bank she could use those assets to raise money.

She said one of the assets is Mui Den Do, a residential and commercial property in HCMC that was valued by Hoang Quan at VND17 trillion (US$688 million) though land alone had cost VND100 trillion.

She could have caused it to appreciate even to VND300 trillion in two years, but could not create value for it and other projects because of her arrest.

Other defendants also said the valuation of Mui Den Do was incorrect.

Tran Thi My Dung, former deputy CEO of SCB, said the market value of the property is VND70 trillion.

Prosecutors have accused Lan of appraisal fraud to get bigger loans from SCB.

Her assets at the bank were ostensibly worth VND487 trillion, but during the investigation an independent company determined their value at just VND108 trillion.

She is also accused of using the same collateral for multiple loans, sometimes as many as 12 times.