Burning Bridges: Foreign Investors Receive Rewards and Punishments

By on January 12, 2010 • Topics: Business & Tech,Current Affairs

1.12.2010 – Multiple news sources have reported heavily about the case of Daniela Marsilli and Tristan Freeman, the chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Qantas Airways Ltd.’s Vietnamese operation, JetStar Pacific, who are now permanent guests in Ho Chi Minh City until further notice.

Since December 19, both executives along with JetStar Pacific’s Vietnamese former chief executive, Luong Hoa Nam, have been prohibited from leaving Vietnam pending an investigation cited by the Wall Street Journal as being related to the airline’s losses, executive salaries, and $31 million “worth of bad bets” on hedging contracts during the last fiscal year.  This story had been slow to surface until it was recently reported in a state-owned newspaper.

In many countries with a free market, a company’s board of directors decides on issues of profit, pay, and risk-taking. The company is also accountable to its shareholders. However, JetStar Pacific’s board is accountable to one more entity — Vietnam’s Communist Party government.  Jetstar’s largest stakeholders are: The State Capital Investment Corporation, which owns 70% ; Qantas, 27%; and state-owned Saigon Tourist Holding Company and Mr. Nam, the rest. Board members include four  Communist Party members and two executives from Qantas.

Regarding losses last fiscal year, Jetstar wasn’t the only company that made the wrong bet on the hedging contract bubble.  Cathay Pacific lost $980,000 TWD as well as Singapore Airlines and Chinese state-owned carriers.

In the meantime, the Vietnamese government is keeping the Qantas executives in country until authorities can figure out who bears “responsibility for heavy financial loss”.   Some have speculated that keeping these executives in-country could pressure Quantas to offset some of the losses incurred last year.

For a developing country like Vietnam where foreign investments are very important, how will this be perceived by future companies looking at the market of Vietnam? What is your impression of the situation?  Please comment below.

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For the full article, please visit here.  VTP’s section on the economy can be found here.

The Author: Brian Luong

Brian Luong is the editor-in-chief of Vietnam Talking Points. Brian is currently pursuing a DMD-MBA joint degree program at Harvard School of Dental Medicine and Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts. Extended Bio.

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  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000187186994 Rodney Hamilton

    Look at the financial attitude of those who suppose to be leading the corporations around the world…Greed maybe…The Bible mentions money more times than Prayer….The tree of knowledge of good & evil has the WORLD BLIND…..Vietnam has laws.They were wrote for a reason….Stealing ethically speaking caused the sub prime market in USA to Crash……

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=751412838 Lustiger Doppleganger

    The Vietnamese Com party members who lost on this bet were speculating. Some speculators win big other loose big but you can't hold the markets responsible if you made the bet (investment). People in power need to learn that their power is not absolute and there are situations which they can not control with force. Especially those of their own making. If illegal actions caused the company to loose money, say through embezzlement, then the law is there to punish the guilty and it shouldn't take a high party member to bring these corrupt individuals to justice. This incident is proof that Vietnam is still ruled by jungle law and strong arm tactics. How can people have confidence in such a government.

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000648765722 Thai Nguyen

    completely disagree with previous comments. your perspectives are colored by your western education. politically what is not "democracy" is considered bad and economically what is not "free market" is considered backward. laughable. lets look at history at centuries at a time rather than 20-50 years. westerners have a long history of screwing developing countries over. sorry to say but all of their activities should be examine with a microscope. would vietnam be better off if we allow walmart to come in and carpet bomb the countries with their stores. absolutely not. growth is good but not at the expense of the future of the country. the people that should be rich off vietnam's growth is the vietnamese people not foreigners. "free market" is just western rhetoric to criticize developing countries' resistance to their capitalistic imperialisms. China is right and VN is right. You cannot let westerners come in own the economy. Why? because that money gets recycle back to london and new york etc.. no thanks. If you look at this at 20-50 years its backward but at 100+ years its the right policy.Sorry westerners. we are not backward we are just doing what is good for us long term. I hope all the western educated vietnamese take a long hard look at what they learned critically. The communist party in both china and VN have done many things wrong but that doesn't mean the western way is correct. Sorry to rant but the 3 previous posts lack so much insight that I felt compelled to do so. western way is definitely not the best way. look at the development of the Philippines.

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=617736644 David Regenold

    If these people were a pair of “Bernie Madoff” imitators I might agree with your point. But I see an entity that had a CEO, a CFO, and a 6-member board of directors of which four members were also communist party members (an arrangement that might deserve some scrutiny). Doesn’t sound to me like westerners scheming against a developing nation. Sounds more like a cigar-filled room of business people who made some unfortunate decisions and are now looking to point fingers.

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=617736644 David Regenold

    If these people were a pair of “Bernie Madoff” imitators I might agree with your point. But I see an entity that had a CEO, a CFO, and a 6-member board of directors of which four members were also communist party members (an arrangement that might deserve some scrutiny). Doesn’t sound to me like westerners scheming against a developing nation. Sounds more like a cigar-filled room of business people who made some unfortunate decisions and are now looking to point fingers.

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000648765722 Thai Nguyen

    chances are you are are david but the western are so far ahead of westerners that its gonna take time for the east to catch up in terms of management and just general know how. giving investors and westerners unfettered access to market prevents local people from ever becoming competitive. if that is allowed there will never be a vietnamese equivalent of sonny, LG, Siemens, Samsung etc.. VN is merely doing what China was doing. JV with foreigners to gain knowledge and capital but stay in control and pretty much kick them out when the Chinese company is ready to operate on their own. it works for china because they have scale and people want to be in china. not sure its gonna work in VN but the idea is right. you have to protect local market. US has tons of protectionist policies so you can't fault the asia for doing this.

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000636942153 Tudo Daiviet

    Thai … I don't see your point/argument at all… Have you ever study the principles, philosophy, and ideas behind capitalism and democracy ?… From your writings it doesn't seem like you have … I maybe wrong…but I hope you read Hayek, Friedman, Keynes, and others again just to refresh. Capitalism tends to benefit both parties in the transaction and history has proven that to be true.In the case of the Philippines, that is similar to what happened with Vietnam. Back in the sixties, it was the second wealthiest country behind Japan and South Vietnam's economy was comparable to Thailand and S. Korea. But the rise of Ferdinand Marcos did them in similar to Ho Chi Minh. They both had a personality cult and distort the truths. He required all places to have his presidential picture just like what you see in Vietnam with Ho Chi Minh. He operated a crony and corrupt economic system just like what you see in Vietnam now. Key business and key political families are tied together just like " con o^ng cha'u cha" now in Vietnam. Corruption did them in not some imperial capitalist.Economists know protectionist policies are not good in the long run that's why they are highly discouraged and most of U.S protectionist policies are politically motivated. Vietnam needs the capital from the West to start businesses and the West should be allow to profit from their investment and taking risks. That's the beauty of capitalism. Noone (except the gov't) prevents the local/regional people to start their own businesses or corporations if they have the resources and compete. I don't know what your point is about China but there are plenty of national Chinese companies now in heavy manufacturing producing cars and machineries like Fudi, Changfeng Motor etc.. and tech companies such as Lenovo and Baidu competing against Dell and Google. All possible because the West invested in China.Vietnam on the other hand had several brain drains. Back in the 70s, the communist imprisoned and send to concentration camps all the existing intellectuals and anybody that had a brain. They discriminated and forbid the younger generation from education and training by preventing any young adult related the previous government from going to college…Just ask any of your parents in their 40s and 50s. That's why they all left. Now most of the young can't afford going to college. Many that do get the chance to go to foreign schools don't want to come back. Some of gullible Viet Kieu intellectuals like you guys come back and work a couple of times before you gave up and left. There was that first wave of investments in the 90s, then after the Asian crash in early 2000s and then now. As long as the crony quasi-commie government is there, change will be slow and painful. History will be distorted. And young Vietnamese abroad will make the mistake of trusting the communist gov't again and again…sighhh

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000648765722 Thai Nguyen

    Are you name dropping to proved that you dropped 80k/yr to have the same shallow understanding as someone who reads wikipedia? You might or might not have read those names but you certainly didn’t read my posts. Go read it again. My point is so many people blindly accept those theories as gospel that it’s disgusting. Democracy and fremarket does not work for VN at the moment. It doesn’t. Although it’s something they can aspire to. My citing of the Philippines is to prove so. They have a democratic system but not the education infrastructure to support it. What happened? The people ended up voting in movie stars. Democracy and freemarket are “luxury” items, byproducts a of developed nation rather than something that makes a nation “developed.” Your discussion of China merely proves my point. China brought in foreign steelers and miners, used their money for infrastructure and downloaded their knowledge. Once these companies are able to complete on the global market the government weans the foreigner out. That’s what happened and that’s what should happen. You cannot let foreigners own your economy. That’s the template VN is trying to do. And I approve. Your undying support of the American system is extremely laughable. Do you really think the US has a freemarket? If you do let me also sell you some asteroid insurance. If you want to pull out the academic card again please update your reading lists because for the last two year the freemarket model has been re-thought over and over again. There are plenty of reading on how “freemarket” favors the west and imposes and harm developing countries. There are ~90 million people in VN and 2ish million Viet Kieus. Chances are the smartest of the smartest Vietnamese will come out of VN not the US or other diaspora. VN does NOT need Viet Kieus. It sure helps to hasten development but we will do fine without them. Your post really summarizes my ultimate point well. All the Viet Kieu’s opinions are so colored by their western education and perspectives (and maybe even their parents bitterness). You need to re-think if that perspective is right. Don’t just sit in your ivory tower casting judgements because others do not fit the definitions you've been feed. It reveals an incredible lack of maturity and insight. All of what you wrote is straight regurgitation. At best you sound like a naïve idealist at the worst you sound like an intellectual poser, offering no practical solution and just waxing your expensive degree. I know being critical of the Vietnamese government is en vogue and fashionable but think about it a little more, pragmatically.

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000648765722 Thai Nguyen

    Are you name dropping to proved that you dropped 80k/yr to have the same shallow understanding as someone who reads wikipedia? You might or might not have read those names but you certainly didn’t read my posts. Go read it again. My point is so many people blindly accept those theories as gospel that it’s disgusting. Democracy and fremarket does not work for VN at the moment. It doesn’t. Although it’s something they can aspire to. My citing of the Philippines is to prove so. They have a democratic system but not the education infrastructure to support it. What happened? The people ended up voting in movie stars. Democracy and freemarket are “luxury” items, byproducts a of developed nation rather than something that makes a nation “developed.” Your discussion of China merely proves my point. China brought in foreign steelers and miners, used their money for infrastructure and downloaded their knowledge. Once these companies are able to complete on the global market the government weans the foreigner out. That’s what happened and that’s what should happen. You cannot let foreigners own your economy. That’s the template VN is trying to do. And I approve. Your undying support of the American system is extremely laughable. Do you really think the US has a freemarket? If you do let me also sell you some asteroid insurance. If you want to pull out the academic card again please update your reading lists because for the last two year the freemarket model has been re-thought over and over again. There are plenty of reading on how “freemarket” favors the west and imposes and harm developing countries. There are ~90 million people in VN and 2ish million Viet Kieus. Chances are the smartest of the smartest Vietnamese will come out of VN not the US or other diaspora. VN does NOT need Viet Kieus. It sure helps to hasten development but we will do fine without them. Your post really summarizes my ultimate point well. All the Viet Kieu’s opinions are so colored by their western education and perspectives (and maybe even their parents bitterness). You need to re-think if that perspective is right. Don’t just sit in your ivory tower casting judgements because others do not fit the definitions you've been feed. It reveals an incredible lack of maturity and insight. All of what you wrote is straight regurgitation. At best you sound like a naïve idealist at the worst you sound like an intellectual poser, offering no practical solution and just waxing your expensive degree. I know being critical of the Vietnamese government is en vogue and fashionable but think about it a little more, pragmatically.

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=1250439743 Nguyen Do

    +1 for Thai Nguyen

  • jhbao

    This discussion is getting HOT on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/notes/onevietnam-networ…

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=578970012 Nate Regenold

    As an observer whose intellectual capability has yet to be questioned, I thought it would be appropriate for me to quickly interject.Firstly, defamation is extremely juvenile, and if debates like these are to continue in the future, insults should be minimized. Also, keeping score does not further a discussion in any way. On to the points made by both Thai and Tudo, beginning with the latter: Tudo, I find your image of capitalism to be somewhat idealistic, and is not an accurate representation of the world market today. When you say, "No one…prevents the local/regional people [from] start[ing] their own businesses or corporations, [as long as] they have the resources [to] compete", I think you underestimate the leverage an international corporation has over local commerce. When it comes to something like air transportation, a multi-million dollar commerce, creating a economically profitable and viable business is near impossible, especially when international businesses already provide the same service and can easily out compete the "newbie". This is actually considered to be the perversion of capitalism, that is the emergence of corporations that can out compete independent businesses and maintain control of the market. This perversion is rampant throughout both the United States and the Europe, extending to the World Market, and this is exactly what Thai means when he says that "westerners" tend to view things from an "ivory tower", a false one at that. I hope you did not find my previous paragraph to be inflammatory in anyway, and if you did, allow me to again restate that I did not intend to do so. I simply wanted to point out that capitalism, as it currently stands, is not a "beautiful thing". Before I move on to Thai, I would like to propose two questions for you to ponder. First, who maintains the United States current and continued prosperity? Our own citizens, or outsourced laborers from Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Thailand, Mexico, the Philippines, Malaysia, Panama, El Salvador and other developing countries? Secondly, if capitalism indeed "tends to benefit both parties in the transaction", why do our international economic partners not share in our great wealth?

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=578970012 Nate Regenold

    Thai, it seems like you are contradictory in your framing of Vietnam's growth, and this is why I think Tudo had trouble with what you were saying. To begin, I think you would agree with me when I say that the World Market functions within a capitalist framework. From this, we can conclude that for Vietnam to participate economically on an international scale, by working with an Australian based company, they would have to also participate within the same free market framework. As Lustiger said, "The Vietnamese Com party members who lost on this bet were speculating". By participating in the World Market, Vietnam exposed itself to the risk associated with the free-market economy. Although it is easily understandable that the government would be upset over a monetary loss, it is not justifiable to hold people "captive" because of such loss, which is the original subject of this debate. Also Thai, while doing some research, I found this article published in an Australian newspaper a little more than a year ago, around the time that Jetstar was establishing itself in Vietnam. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/news/jump-start-for-jetstar-with-pacific-partner/story-e6frg8ro-1111116091291. As you can see, Vietnam did not bring Jetstar on board so that they could later move forward without them. Unfortunately, it seems that the opposite is true, as Qantas was only using Vietnam as a stepping-stone to further its own economic conquest of Asia. Expanding on this, I would also like to point out that you slightly exaggerate the economic success of China, as there are few cases where a Chinese company has been able to out compete foreign companies after utilizing them to acquire specific know-how. In reality, China is essentially a renting space where international businesses can set up shop and pay low wages for efficient labor.To both of you, I hope my comments were clear, but if they weren’t, please comment back and I would love to have a discussion with you two. Again, in no way was I ever trying to insult your intelligences; I was merely trying to add to the dialogue.

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=578970012 Nate Regenold

    Thai, it seems like you are contradictory in your framing of Vietnam's growth, and this is why I think Tudo had trouble with what you were saying. To begin, I think you would agree with me when I say that the World Market functions within a capitalist framework. From this, we can conclude that for Vietnam to participate economically on an international scale, by working with an Australian based company, they would have to also participate within the same free market framework. As Lustiger said, "The Vietnamese Com party members who lost on this bet were speculating". By participating in the World Market, Vietnam exposed itself to the risk associated with the free-market economy. Although it is easily understandable that the government would be upset over a monetary loss, it is not justifiable to hold people "captive" because of such loss, which is the original subject of this debate. Also Thai, while doing some research, I found this article published in an Australian newspaper a little more than a year ago, around the time that Jetstar was establishing itself in Vietnam. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/news/jump-start-for-jetstar-with-pacific-partner/story-e6frg8ro-1111116091291. As you can see, Vietnam did not bring Jetstar on board so that they could later move forward without them. Unfortunately, it seems that the opposite is true, as Qantas was only using Vietnam as a stepping-stone to further its own economic conquest of Asia. Expanding on this, I would also like to point out that you slightly exaggerate the economic success of China, as there are few cases where a Chinese company has been able to out compete foreign companies after utilizing them to acquire specific know-how. In reality, China is essentially a renting space where international businesses can set up shop and pay low wages for efficient labor.To both of you, I hope my comments were clear, but if they weren’t, please comment back and I would love to have a discussion with you two. Again, in no way was I ever trying to insult your intelligences; I was merely trying to add to the dialogue.

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000636942153 Tudo Daiviet

    Tudo Daiviet I was busy with work and a conference so I did not have a chance to address this. Thanks Nate for showing that western education does teach critical thinking and reasoning. I will address your criticisms of capitalism and corporatism later (maybe). I think those are fair criticisms and would be great discussions in the classroom environment. That aside, I was trying to address Thai's criticism that western education is producing ignorant, shallow students who are indoctrinated into drinking the Kool-Aid of capitalism, democracy, and human rights. And that Viet Kieu arguments are " blinded by their parents' bitterness of the past". Thai also argued that the western model of using capitalism, democracy, and human rights to develop certain nations are wrong and will not work. He cited examples of the Phillipines and China .I have already addressed the Phillipines example and pointed out that Phillipines' failures were not because they tried free market, democracy, and human rights and didn't work but because they went the Vietnamese communist path which is dictatorship, cult-like propaganda, and corruption.This path leads to the political instability that Phillipines is experiencing today. They do not enjoy a democracy or democratic standards such as peaceful turnover of government or fraudless (i.e. very little fraud) elections. Having elections does not make a country democratic. Vietnam has elections and these communist officials get 90-100% of the votes all the time. If Vietnam gets more corrupt the same future will hold for Vietnam.Again, Phillipines is NOT an example of how capitalism and democracy doesn't work but rather it is a perfect example of what a corrupt and crony dictatorship can do to a country. Learn from that, Vietnam.Examples of how transitioning from dictatorship to free market and democracy includes Taiwan and South Korea. I will also address China and other criticisms later.To BE CONTINUED…

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=1797390051 Peter Nguyen

    I'm gonna try to be impartial here but Tudo common dude you sound like Fox News (spinning facts and making silly arguments that they might not even believe themselves). Just get over it man. You made some statements that got really picked apart just move on stop beating a dead argument for the sake of it. I'm not going to say I agree or disagree with anyone but as a rhetoric major you really need to work on your argument structure and also you gotta read what people wrote man (you totally missed their points and you made the cardinal sin of putting your words into their mouths. It really takes away from the argument). You sound like Glenn Beck. You're better than this!!

  • http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=578970012 Nate Regenold

    Tudo,I want you to read this link. Although in America we might not have "communist corruption", we most certainly have "corporate corruption". If I could choose between the two however, I would prefer the "communist corruption", simply because those in charge try to represent the needs of the people. In America, the corporations that throw around enormous sums of money in order to better their own financial position do NOT represent the needs of the people, and greatly contribute to the ever-expanding social divide. http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/01/analysis-the-personhood-of-corporations/