Talking about tariff policy, "steel king" emphasized: Gentlemen must protect themselves.

The 2025 shareholders' meeting of Hoa Phat Group Joint Stock Company (stock code: HPG) is taking place in Hanoi. The meeting is chaired by Chairman of the Board of Directors Tran Dinh Long and a number of members of the Board of Directors and the company's executive board.

An interesting point in Hoa Phat's shareholder meeting is that there is no lengthy report and the last part is a question and answer session between shareholders and leaders. The report is presented relatively quickly.

As of 9:14 a.m., the meeting was attended by 722 shareholders and 324 authorized individuals, representing 64.5% of the group's voting shares.

Speaking at the congress, billionaire Tran Dinh Long said he was under a lot of pressure when becoming a national company. The chairman of Hoa Phat said the group has about 194,000 shareholders, which is the largest number of shareholders of a company on the Vietnamese stock exchange and also a record number for the group.

Mr. Long also commented that the new tariff policy shocked the economy and caused great fluctuations in the Vietnamese stock market.

"A gentleman must defend himself. He must consider the possibility of bad things, even very bad things. Basically, the world economy has many fluctuations. I don't know how it will fluctuate. Hoa Phat has a good defense spirit and is on guard against all fluctuations. I hope the congress will have a view that is both adaptive and cautious," Mr. Long emphasized.

This year, the company of "steel king" Tran Dinh Long sets a revenue target of 170,000 billion VND, an increase of 21% compared to 2024. The target profit after tax is 15,000 billion VND, an increase of 25%.

Mr. Long said that although this plan is ambitious, Hoa Phat is still confident with positive results in the first quarter when recording revenue of 37,000 billion VND and after-tax profit of up to 3,300 billion VND.

"We boldly build a high business plan, to complete each quarter we need to achieve more than 4,000 billion in profit - a very high number. That is both a challenge and an opportunity. In short, Hoa Phat will not adjust its business plan even in the context of many market uncertainties", the group's head shared.

Mr. Tran Dinh Long, Chairman of Hoa Phat Group (Photo: HPG).

Previously, Hoa Phat announced that it would pay a 20% stock dividend. Previously, in the 2025 annual meeting document, they planned to pay a 2024 dividend of 15% in stock and 5% in cash.

The company cited the reason for the adjustment as the development of the reciprocal import tax policy of the US President Donald Trump's administration and on a cautious basis to ensure cash resources.

Hoa Phat has stopped paying cash dividends since 2022. Explaining this, the group's leaders once said that they focused their investment on the Dung Quat 2 Iron and Steel Complex project, so they needed capital and found it difficult to pay cash dividends.

At Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s meeting with Hoa Phat Group in February, Chairman Tran Dinh Long pledged that the company would grow 15% annually, meeting the target of double-digit GDP growth in the 2025-2030 period. Hoa Phat also plans to produce steel for the North-South high-speed railway project, as requested by the Prime Minister.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/kinh-doanh/noi-ve-chinh-sach-thue-quan-vua-thep-nhan-manh-quan-tu-phai-phong-than-20250417010256716.htm