Bond 'architect' Tran Son Hai and the new design at Ba Huan

"Architect" of tens of thousands of billions of bonds

Mr. Tran Son Hai, the silent "architect" of billion-dollar corporate bond deals, who understands the financial market like the back of his hand, left Tien Phong Securities (ORS) when the bond earthquake began to show its destructive power. Since then, he has almost disappeared from the media and from public positions of power, leaving the financial community wondering where Tran Son Hai is and what game is he really interested in?

Looking back in the past, a few years ago, the name Tran Son Hai was considered a symbol of an elite class of businessmen in the banking and finance industry. He possesses the character of a strategist, both courageous in action and profound in calculation. Born in 1977, Mr. Hai had the opportunity to be trained at the "cradles" of knowledge and practice, from Boston Consulting Group, to Standard Chartered Vietnam, and then to join TPBank. Everywhere he went, he left the mark of a person who was not only good at his job, but also had a far-sighted vision.

Mr. Tran Son Hai, the silent "architect" for billion-dollar bond deals at ORS

In 2019, TPBank completed the acquisition of Phuong Dong Securities Company and rebranded as Tien Phong Securities Company - ORS. After that transition, bankers did not hesitate to trust and mobilize Tran Son Hai, then Director of Investment and Large Corporate Clients, to take over the helm of this new member unit.

At ORS, Mr. Tran Son Hai took the position of General Director, the highest position in the executive apparatus, and quickly became the "right-hand man" of Do Anh Tu, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ORS, and also the younger brother of TPBank Chairman Do Minh Phu. During the boom period of the corporate bond market in the period of 2020 - 2022, Mr. Tran Son Hai did not stand aside from the situation.

On the contrary, he was the one who proactively drew up the most daring "following the trend" strategy. ORS's decisions under his hands turned this securities company into a key link in the chain of capital mobilization of tens of thousands of billions of VND through the bond channel. The difficulty is to shape the cash flow so that it does not simply flow randomly, but is guided by the will of the "designer".

To create such a blockbuster machine, Mr. Hai clearly understands that he alone is not enough. He needs to recruit like-minded colleagues, gather potential partners, and among them, Bamboo Capital Group of tycoon Nguyen Ho Nam appears as an ideal piece.

Since then, the alliance between Bamboo Capital and the financial ecosystem around TPBank - ORS has begun to reveal its tight, sophisticated connections. On the one hand, Bamboo Capital directly or indirectly through its member companies such as Tracodi Construction Group (TCD), poured thousands of billions of VND in exchange for tens of millions of TPBank shares, equivalent to about 3% of shares in this bank. On the other hand, the cash flow from TPBank was transferred back to Bamboo Capital or Tracodi, through intermediary legal entities such as ORS or Viet Cat Fund Management Joint Stock Company. The trillion-dollar transactions were intertwined to form an underground network, while the shares, credits and benefits circulated according to a pre-calculated design.

According to statistics in 2021 - the year when the bond market was the most vibrant in history, Bamboo Capital alone, with strong support from TPBank and ORS, successfully mobilized an amount of up to tens of thousands of billions of VND. TPBank acted as a supporting bank, directly lending Bamboo Capital VND 1,027 billion, including VND 132 billion of short-term debt and VND 895 billion of long-term debt. In parallel, ORS, under the coordination of Mr. Tran Son Hai, participated as an arranger, depository agent, issuance consultant... in the vast majority of the debt of nearly VND 8,900 billion of bonds recorded by the end of 2021.

However, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind Bamboo Capital is a whole ecosystem of businesses that are as closely linked as roots in the ground. ORS, as the issuer, has coordinated smoothly with capital mobilization entities such as: BCG Land Joint Stock Company, Helios Investment and Services Joint Stock Company, Gia Khang Investment and Trading Services Joint Stock Company, Tracodi, Thanh Nguyen Energy Investment and Development Company Limited, and especially R&H Group Joint Stock Company, creating a perfect cycle, pushing the capital flow to continuously circulate through legal entities with different shapes, but seemingly converging to a "low spot" - Bamboo Capital.

It is estimated that in 2021 alone, the total amount of bonds mobilized by this group of businesses exceeded 20,000 billion VND, equivalent to about 800 million USD, enough to overwhelm even experienced "players" in the capital market.

But every game must come to an end. Few people could have expected that the climax of the bond market would suddenly be extinguished at the beginning of 2022, opening a period of strict cleansing under the tough hand of state management agencies. A series of major cases that stirred public opinion such as Trinh Van Quyet (FLC), Do Anh Dung (Tan Hoang Minh), Truong My Lan (Van Thinh Phat) were exposed, exposing the dark side behind trillion-dollar bond deals, causing the entire market to fall into a serious crisis of confidence.

Mr. Nguyen Ho Nam - founder of Bamboo Capital

ORS, whose core business revolves around bond issuance and placement, quickly became a direct victim. Business results plummeted, the company was in turmoil. But ORS not only lost its form because of market changes, but also because of the sudden withdrawal of the person who built the bond empire - Mr. Tran Son Hai, General Director and legal representative at that time. Leaving the executive position since July 2022, he remained on the Board of Directors for a while, before officially ending all roles in April 2023.

Since then, Mr. Tran Son Hai has gradually become a quiet shadow in the financial world. No noise, no longer appearing in the media, he only left a faint trace through a few "behind the scenes" positions, sometimes as a member of the Board of Directors of Vinahud Company, where Nguyen Ho Nam - a major shareholder with 22.8% of shares is present. At other times, he appeared as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nam Ha Pharmaceutical Company, representing a group of major shareholders from R&H Group, holding about 40% of shares by 2022.

But wherever he is, his presence is like a flickering light that... fades away. After several years of silence, the name Tran Son Hai has recently reappeared on the business map with a very responsible executive role.

This time, he did not reappear in the financial world, but in a completely different field, which is Ba Huan Thanh Hoa High-Tech Company Limited, a member unit of the oldest food brand in Ho Chi Minh City - Ba Huan, associated with the name of "poultry egg queen" Pham Thi Huan.

New game at Ba Huan

Mr. Tran Son Hai has just taken the "commander" seat at Ba Huan Thanh Hoa. Looking at Mr. Hai's work profile, it is undeniable that the food and agriculture industry is somewhat new and inexperienced for the new director. However, Ba Huan is in a period of strong transformation, ambitious to expand scale, modernize production, and prepare to implement high-tech livestock projects, typically the poultry farm in Long An province.

Such projects cannot be operated by purely technical vision but require large capital flows and a systematic financial structure, so no one is more capable of "designing" the cash flow in the right direction than banking and finance expert Tran Son Hai.

"Queen of Poultry Eggs" Pham Thi Huan

Besides, few people know that Ba Huan was not a chance encounter between Tran Son Hai and the food industry. Mr. Hai came to Ba Huan as a strategic partner, instead of a hired director, in case of only a cursory assessment. In fact, over the years, Ba Huan has become one of his family's important investment projects.

In 2022, Ms. Pham Thi Huan confirmed to the press about the transfer of a large amount of shares of Ba Huan Company to a domestic partner, with the transaction value not disclosed. It is only known that the buyer is the family of Mr. Tran Viet Hung (born in 1985) - the character who was not long after given the position of General Director of Ba Huan by the "poultry egg queen" until now.

None other than Mr. Tran Viet Hung is the youngest brother, in a family of three brothers of Mr. Tran Son Hai - the eldest brother and Mr. Tran Viet Ha - the second brother. Therefore, many people in the industry speculate that the quiet transfer of shares, the rise to power of the youngest brother, along with the unexpected return of the eldest brother, are not all coincidental. These are very likely steps in a long-term plan, carefully prepared and patiently implemented, in which Ba Huan is just the starting point for the broader ambitions of the three brothers of the Tran Son Hai family.

Mr. Tran Viet Hung - General Director of Ba Huan Company

In Mr. Hai’s family, Mr. Tran Viet Hung has more than a decade of management experience in Singapore, having held many senior management positions before returning to take over Ba Huan. His cool hand in operations, along with his methodical and international mindset, is clearly demonstrated in every recent step of Ba Huan.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tran Son Hai is a master of the capital market, understanding how to design cash flow, financial structure and mobilize resources. With proven reputation and extensive relationships in the banking and investment world, he is capable of helping Ba Huan access new "salary warehouses" at reasonable capital costs, serving long-term expansion plans.

Not to mention Mr. Tran Viet Ha, the second brother in the family, who is currently a "tycoon" in the fuel and lubricant business. Mr. Viet Ha runs two key businesses, Thanh Giang Fuel and Service Joint Stock Company and STS Lubricant Joint Stock Company. Thanh Giang Company, in which Mr. Viet Ha holds over 96% of the shares, records annual revenue of nearly 100 billion VND, a stable figure in an industry that is strict in both technology and cash flow...

Notably, behind Mr. Viet Ha is his wife - Mrs. Pham Thi Bich Duoc, a former colleague of Tran Son Hai at Standard Chartered Bank Vietnam. Not only contributing to connecting the network of financial and banking relationships, Mrs. Duoc also spent time participating in the management of Thanh Giang Company, being an important "link" in the process of building and developing the business.

To find out more information, reporters from Cong Thuong Newspaper contacted Mr. Tran Son Hai and Mr. Tran Viet Hung many times via their personal phone numbers. However, neither of them responded.

East China

Source: https://congthuong.vn/kien-truc-su-trai-phieu-tran-son-hai-va-ban-thiet-ke-moi-tai-ba-huan-382248.html