As the national economy and the stock market have not
recovered yet, the businesses which have suffered from financial
investments still cannot find any suitable solutions to their problems.


The VN Index on March 9 dropped by 66.77 points (21%)
to 247.85 points, lower than the last day of 2008. This also spells
that a heavier burden will be put on the businesses which have suffered
from financial investments since the stock prices have dropped to the
level lower than the time of closing the 2008 books.


The Refrigeration Engineering Enterprise (REE)
used more than a half of the stockholder equity (VND 1.2 trillion) to
make financial investments. As the stock market fell, the investment
value devaluated dramatically and the enterprise’s profit from its main
business field could not offset the lost investment value.


The financial investments brought the profit of minus VND 467 billion to REE,
but the profit from main business fields helped ease the loss. The
finance report showed that by December 31, 2008, the day of closing
books, REE had incurred the loss of VND 139 billion.


With the loss, REE
was put under the control by the HCM City Stock Exchange. In the
meeting with investors recently, Nguyen Thi Mai Thanh, Chairman and CEO
of REE
admitted her shortcomings. If the VN Index does not increase to the
level equal to or higher than that of late last year, the financial
investments will lose more value.


Experts said that if the VN Index still keeps at 250
points by the end of March, the value of financial investments will
drop by another VND 80 billion. If the profit from other business
fields cannot offset the loss from financial investments, REE will not be able to escape from the special control.


Institutions share the same viewpoint that the stock
market is not likely to recover in 2009 to help enterprises to regain
the financial investment value. In this case, if enterprises continue
holding on the investments for one more year, they will have another
difficult year. Meanwhile, they do not want to sell securities right
now when the stock prices are too low.


Huynh Anh Tuan, Director of SJC
Securities Company, also said that if holding the shares, enterprises
will endure the ‘long pain’ as the stock market is not likely to
recover this year.


As for REE,
its business fields of real estate and mechanical refrigeration have
been running well which can bring a decent profit. As such, [url="http://www.vietstock.com.vn/vstfinance/StockDetail.aspx?scode=REE" style="color: rgb(68, 68, 204); text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">REE can settle the problem in stock investments, it would receive profit immediately. Therefore, SAM, said that the company could not find the proper solution. Telecommunication cables, the main business field of