BIC held Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders in 2016
04:28 CH @ Thứ Tư - 30 Tháng Ba, 2016
The extraordinary general meeting was participated by shareholders representing 86.5% of BIC’s voting shares. Mr. Ramaswamy Athappan, Chairman of FairFax Asia and many senior managers of FairFax, Mr. Nguyen Huy Tua, Member of the Board of Directors and heads of Divisions at Head Office of BIDV - the major shareholder also took part in the general meeting.
After inspecting shareholder status, introducing and adopting Chairpersons, Secretariat and Vote counters of the general meeting with 100% of approval votes, Mr. Vo Hai Nam, Member of the Board of Directors, reported result of separate share issue to the strategic shareholder. According to the report, besides purchase of strategic shares, BIC and FairFax signed a Comprehensive technical support contract for management, administration, risk management, products, information technology, training, etc to make BIC become the leading insurance company in Vietnam in term of market share, operation quality and performance.
Owning 35% of total shares of BIC, FairFax nominated and introduced members of BIC’s Board of Directors and Board of Supervisory. In detail, Mr. Ramaswamy Athappan, Chairman of FairFax Asia was nominated as the Vice Chairman of BIC’s Board of Directors; Mr. Gobinath Athappan, Deputy Chairman of FairFax Asia was nominated as a member of BIC’s Board of Directors; Mr. Zainul Abidin Rasheed and Mr. Osith Ramanathan were nominated as members of BIC’s Board of Supervisory. According to Mr. Pham Quang Tung, “Direct participation of the most senior managers of FairFax shows key role of Vietnamese market, expectations and beliefs of FairFax in BIC’s future”. Besides, the deep participation of FairFax in BIC’s management apparatus will be an important motivation for technical support transfer of FairFax to BIC.
Moreover, the major shareholder - BIDV also nominated and introduced Ms. Pham Thi Van Khanh - Director of SME Customer Division of BIDV as a member of BIC’s Board of Directors and a representative of 20% of capital contributed by BIDV to replace Ms. Nguyen Thi Quynh Giao.
New Board of Directors...
... and Board of Supervisory of BIC after amendment/replacement
Another important content reported by BIC’s Board of Directors to the General meeting and concerned by the General meeting is the movement of BIC’s headquarter to Ho Chi Minh City. According to report of CEO Tran Hoai An, the movement of BIC’s headquarter to the largest economy - finance - insurance center in Vietnam will be extremely significant to BIC’s business operation. BIC’s Board of Directors submitted such content to the General meeting of shareholders for approval and it was authorized to consider and decide official movement time, select specific location as well as perform related legal procedures for normal business operation and customer services of BIC.
The above contents were approved by BIC’s General meeting of shareholders with a high approval rate.
The discussion after reports also got much attention from shareholders and representatives of press agencies. Especially, BIC development orientation after cooperating with the strategic shareholder - FairFax and BIC’s headquarter movement to Ho Chi Minh City plan are concerned and questioned by many shareholders. To answer questions of shareholders, Mr. Pham Quang Tung, Chairman of BIC stated commitments of FairFax to BIC’s future. “Target of FairFax is to make BIC become one out of five leading insurance companies in Vietnam in the next five years. Thus, besides purchase of BIC’s shares at a price much higher than the market price, FairFax signed a comprehensive technical support contract with BIC to improve BIC’s competitiveness in insurance business and financial investments. Recent specific activities of FairFax to BIC have proved this determination of FairFax”. Besides, according to BIC’s Chairman, participation of FairFax will give BIC an opportunity to restart transformation of BIC into BIC Holdings. “We will make specific plans on this transformation and submit such plans to the Annual general meeting of shareholders in 2016”.
BIC’s Board of Directors will make the most appropriate plans and procedures for movement of BIC’s Head Office to Ho Chi Minh City to ensure normal operation of BIC.
Other issues related to BIC’s business operation such as retail business, room extension for investors, BIC’s dividends, investment portfolio restructure, etc were transparently answered by BIC’s Board of Directors in good faith.
