Latest news with #Rothschild
Telegraph
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Lady Rothschild interview: ‘I'm proud to have been a Page 3 girl'
Loretta Rothschild is contemplating the term 'trophy wife'. As a former Page 3 model who married Nat Rothschild, heir to the centuries-old European banking dynasty, she's grown used to the tabloid sobriquet. 'I've been described as worse things,' she laughs. 'But on Page 3 – honestly, I really want to make this clear: I'm so proud to have been a Page 3 girl and I will always celebrate that achievement.' This is the first time Lady Rothschild, to use her official title, has ever given a proper, sit-down interview. Until this point, the billionaire couple, who married in the Swiss ski resort of Klosters in 2016, had not even made it public that they have a son – whose name and age she has requested I withhold. Why such secrecy, when her only child will one day become the 6th Baron Rothschild, inheriting a vast wealth that has made the family one of the most famous in the world? 'There are downsides,' the 34-year-old admits. To being a Rothschild? 'No, to being in the press,' she caveats. 'I've had photographers turn up outside my sister's home and at my mum's… I've always said I won't talk about my son until he is 18 years old and then he can decide for himself.' Which goes some way to explaining why Rothschild boasts a Burke's Peerage entry – but not a Wikipedia one. So far, any articles that have been written about her have tended to be of the Essex girl/arm candy variety. One praised her 'fantastic figure, great boobs, small waist, good bum, and long, chestnut hair', while another described her as 'looking gorgeous in black undies, stockings and suspenders'. That rather tawdry narrative is set to change, with the publication of Finding Grace, Rothschild's page-turning first novel, which is already on Goodreads' list of the hottest debuts of 2025. Described as a 'gripping and emotional love story exploring grief, motherhood and an explosive secret', the book chronicles the lives of Tom and Honor – a husband and wife torn apart by a shocking event. The Tell Me Lies author Carola Lovering has said it 'feels like a movie… with characters and scenes that explode off the page' – and plaudits have been flowing in from bestselling authors including Plum Sykes, Julia Whelan and Imogen Edward-Jones. The American writer, Jodi Picoult, who has sold more than 40 million books, enthused: 'Loretta Rothschild's debut novel has one of the best first chapter cliffhangers ever…and then it just keeps getting better.' As we meet at the offices of Rothschild's publicist in central London, I find the budding novelist dressed casually in a pair of blue Levi's and black ribbed Cos jumper – with her navy Habsburg military-style blazer hanging over a nearby chair. Although she was born in Essex, and brought up by her mother Sue, an East Ender who encouraged Loretta and her older sister Olivia into child modelling, there isn't a false eyelash or fake fingernail in sight. Instead, the well-spoken Rothschild, who as far as I can tell is wearing no make-up at all, exudes the kind of wholesome, natural beauty that Page 3 girls were famous for before The Sun discontinued the topless photography in 2015, after more than 44 years. 'There were not a lot of us,' she recalls, her piercing blue eyes staring straight into mine. 'And we were all natural. The images weren't airbrushed or touched up or anything like that. It was a very comfortable environment. I mean, at the time, I didn't think of it as a career or anything like that. It was just great to be able to earn my own money and support myself. But I was probably never very good at it, because my head was somewhere else. You know, I was always away with the fairies, whatever I was doing.' Alison Webster, the paper's official Page 3 photographer, remembers her rather differently, once describing 'Elle', as she was known to fans back then, as 'a bright girl who was sure of herself and always in control'. She adds: 'And she was ambitious. We'd sit with a glass of wine after a day's shoot and she'd tell me she wanted to make something more of herself. And I always felt that she would.' After appearing in The Sun and modelling under her real name Loretta Basey, Rothschild went on to date the comedian Steve Coogan, who she met during a cover shoot for the now defunct lads' mag, Loaded. He was guest-editing in the guise of his alter-ego Alan Partridge and, in one photograph, was snapped cupping her breasts in his hands. The couple lived together at his home near Lewes, East Sussex, before breaking up in 2014. The actor's 2015 autobiography Easily Distracted thanks 'Loretta for making me laugh with her gentle mockery, and for her love'. The pair remain friends. 'I mean, I adore Steve, I really do,' insists Rothschild. 'We had a great relationship. You know, nearly five years of my life.' But it was Eton-educated Rothschild, 53, who ultimately stole her heart. Not that it was love at first sight – far from it, in fact. Denouncing as 'nonsense' reports that the couple met while Loretta was working for a private jet company, she explains: 'We'd been friends for quite a long time. I wish there was some romantic story but my husband's pretty straightforward. I think we were on a dog walk and he said: 'I want you to be my girlfriend.' I can't quite remember but I think I replied: 'What, no dinner?' or something like that. We were ambling along and I was very much sort of covered in mud. 'I didn't become his girlfriend in that moment. We were friends, and we continued to be friends, even after the 'I want you to be my girlfriend'. He was very nervous all the time around me – very shy. And it took me a few years to fall in love with him. 'When it was just us, he could be quite quiet, but he came to life with his friends, when there were other people around. When I really started to fancy him was when he started to be very funny. Nat is so funny, to the point where sometimes I can't breathe.' I ask if she was worried about the 19-year age gap – or, more importantly, the weight of the Rothschild name. Describing the former member of Oxford University's notorious Bullingdon Club as 'the least kind of society person I know', she adds: 'I can't even think of him in that way. He's not a snob. Nat's Nat. He comes into your life, and that's it, he's in. That's the blessing. That's why I probably never felt like I was in a certain world because Nat is someone I deeply admire for the way he walks through the world. He's very, very true to himself. There's never a moment where a façade is up. He is totally authentic, 100 per cent of the time. And that's very attractive.' After marrying at an intimate ceremony in the Swiss Alps nine years ago, the pair then held a second wedding reception at Stowell Park, Nat's parents' sprawling estate near Pewsey, Wiltshire. But the groom did not invite his father Jacob to the wedding and they remained estranged until his death, aged 87, last year. The former investment banker and hereditary peer would tell friends their strained relationship was similar to that of the King and Prince Harry. Nat's mother, Serena, a thoroughbred-racehorse owner, did not attend either, although the pair remained close until her death in 2019, aged 83. Reluctant to comment on the family feud, Rothschild insists she 'wasn't ever worried' about what she was marrying into – or indeed how she might be treated as an 'outsider'. 'I just had no idea. I probably made some terrible mistakes, seemingly to some people, and would ask questions I probably shouldn't have asked, but Nat and I just got on so well that we were in our own world. I was never intimidated by anything. I think after Page 3, if any negativity came my way, I just thought, well, that's your view, but I can't control what other people think of me. I'm never going to please everyone. So if I can please my mum or Nat or the people that answer the phone every day and really know me, then that feels nice to me.' The couple live quite a nomadic lifestyle – with a superyacht and homes in London, Wiltshire, Los Angeles and Klosters. They are currently spending most of their time at another home, in Italy. Estimates of Nat's wealth range between £1 billion and £40 billion following his father's death. Yet Loretta insists that she remains rooted 'in the principles that my mum really nailed into me', adding: 'There's two things in life I cannot stand. One of them is snobbery about anything, and the other is intentional cruelty towards others. Cruelty and snobbery are just non-starters for me.' Like Nat, she is estranged from her father – Phillip, an accountant and a former treasurer of UKIP and the Brexit party. The couple appear to be much closer to her family than the wider Rothschild clan. She explains: 'You know, our family chat (group) consists of me, Nat, my mum and my immediate family. He's very much in the Essex chat group. At recent Christmases I've enjoyed watching just how much Nat loves my mum. The whole thing is so small. I don't honestly think about 'the family'. Do I feel like someone's wife? No, Nat sort of has to get on with us!' And if she ever gets any ideas above her station, she's brought back down to earth by her sister. 'I would sometimes call Liv and say: 'You don't understand what's just happened to me' and she'd be like: 'Yeah, can you babysit tonight?' 'When I react, I react as an Essex girl. I mean, I wish I didn't sometimes but that is fundamentally who I am. I've worked really hard to do what I have – whether it's Page 3 or my book. When I look at that – I achieved that and I want to carry on achieving things.' Despite being 'appalling at school', and later being diagnosed with dyslexia, she developed a passion for literature. 'School was tough,' she admits of her all-girls, private secondary education, saying she preferred the mixed state primary school she attended when she was younger. She adds: 'The teachers would all say: 'She's in her own world', which was absolutely correct. 'I left school, went to college for a bit and did a year at Manchester Metropolitan but, on reflection, I should never have gone to university. I was always walking around with characters in my head, making up stories – I didn't realise that other people didn't do that.' When the Covid lockdown happened, Rothschild began 'devouring everything I could find about writing novels'. She cites Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, William Boyd's Any Human Heart, Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty and Max Porter's Grief is the Thing with Feathers as inspirations, alongside writers including Saki and Somerset Maugham. 'I started to learn why some novels work and why some don't. And then Honor [the book's main character] kind of came into my head. She was this very vocal voice and I couldn't do anything without her voicing an opinion. It was like she was suddenly there.' The book, she admits, is essentially a series of love stories. 'It's a love story, but it's also about paternal love, platonic love, unexpected love, past loves, and how they are intertwined.' She's a romantic, then? 'I think I am. I think that falling in love, that freefall of infatuation is so quick and so rarely experienced that it's the most dangerous. At that moment, you're at your most vulnerable.' I wonder if she worried about the book being branded 'chick lit' when actually the 'first chapter cliffhanger' Picoult referenced makes it more in the vein of Gone Girl or The Girl on a Train. 'I like the fact that I've written a love story. I've written something that is considered a romance. So chick lit, for me… if I am in any way in that kind of window or associated with those authors, I would be thrilled. Those books are so fantastic – they're popular and have a fan base that will queue around the block for them.' She adds, 'It's strange that that is something that isn't celebrated in the right way, or dismissed when those authors are writing about really important subjects. It's just snobbery.' She did every online writing masterclass she could find during lockdown and then attended a creative writing course in LA for a year. 'I'm quite methodical. I've got a lot of ideas but I needed some structure. I needed to find a style that suited me.' Finding a publishing deal was, she admits, 'terrifying'. Acknowledging that most people will assume she only got the book published because of her husband, she says: 'I never really said to people, I'm going to do this thing. I said, hey, I've done this thing – it already exists, here it is. Because I remember, back in my 20s, mentioning to one person that I want to write – and they sort of gave me this face. So I thought, 'I'm not going to do that.' Don't tell people what you're planning to do – just tell them what you've done. 'I had quite a lot of naivety about it in the sense that I was so excited I finished this thing. But my first thought was: will it even get read? In the few weeks before we sent it out, I reread the first few chapters and thought, this is terrible, why am I doing this?' Just 72 hours after the draft was sent out to UK and US publishers, St Martin's Press, based in New York, replied. 'I remember it exactly,' smiles Rothschild. 'I opened my email and they came back and said, 'We want it, and we want the next one as well', so it ended up being a two-book deal. But in England, there were a lot of rejections. It certainly didn't happen because of my surname. That doesn't really happen, unless you're a Tolstoy! Actually writing a book and getting it published is bloody hard.' Admitting she did 'drive my husband a bit mad' with the whole process, she says: 'He was extremely supportive, to be fair, bringing me endless cups of tea. He was always up for it.' Rothschild would get up at the crack of dawn and write before anyone else had woken up. 'I felt like that time was so precious, when the whole house was quiet. I'd get three hours of writing in.' There is now rarely a day that goes by when she doesn't write something, and she is already halfway through her second book. Naturally, her mother Sue remains her biggest fan. 'My mum is so proud of every breath I take. Before she'd even read anything, I was already one of the Brontë sisters to her.' Reader, she may have married him – but when it comes to this Page 3 girl turned published author – it's probably best not to judge the book by its cover.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Who Can Build on the Moon? Understanding the Wild West of Lunar Architecture
Photo: Foster + Partners If all goes to plan, by 2040 people may be living on the moon in houses made—essentially—from mushrooms. At least, that's how astrobiologist Dr. Lynn J. Rothschild is picturing it. She imagines domed habitats that could comfortably host three bedrooms, with spectacular views of space beyond their large windows. Under an inflatable shell, they would be made of mycelium, a root-like fungal structure, something of an alternative building material heroine, lauded for its durability; versatility; and water-, mold-, and fire-resistant properties. Here on Earth, it's been used to make bricks for construction, furniture, and even shoes. 'Mycelium has low flammability and great acoustic properties. It can be made so that it is highly insulating,' says Rothschild, who works at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California. Rothschild and her team are just one of several research groups exploring the possibilities of what a moon base might look like: China and Russia are aiming to create a lunar nuclear power plant, Foster + Partners is working with the European Space Agency to 3D-print a lunar habitat, and Japan hopes to establish its own surface colony, to name a few. With all of these projects in the works, it begs the question: Who is actually allowed to start building? In this article Who can build on the moon? How might lunar real estate be divided? What would homes actually look like on the moon? Where would moon homes be located? There's a reason that Star Trek dubbed outer space 'the final frontier.' Establishing settlements on extraterrestrial bodies is a bit like claiming land in the former Wild West—whoever can reach it first can plant their flag, with some limits. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and 2020's Artemis Accords state that no one country can own the moon and set guidelines for lunar conduct. However, individuals can explore, build structures, and mine the moon for its minerals. To this end, the United States, China, Japan, Russia, and India have all successfully landed lunar rovers, however, the US is the only country to have sent humans to the moon's surface. All are currently vying for a piece of its real estate: Japanese private space exploration company ispace is aiming to match the US's 2040 timeline for lunar habitats. However, it is currently stalled by multiple failed missions to land a probe on the moon. Meanwhile, China and Russia are partnering on a project called the International Lunar Research Station that claims construction will begin after 2028. The duo is considering powering it with a nuclear plant. Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Serbia, Pakistan, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand, and Venezuela have also signed on to the project, though official designs for the station and plant have yet to be released. Should several countries be successful in building a moon base, research centers, habitats, or even a power plant on the moon's surface, each would be operated and occupied by its nation's astronauts and partners. They would be laid out similar to the way Antarctica's permanent research stations are plotted across its icy tundra, loosely clustered by global region but more on a first-come, first-flag-planted basis. To some, that's concerning. In January, World Monuments Fund (WMF) included the moon on its 2025 World Monuments Watch because of potential for new explorers and exploiters to damage it and its 'over 90 historic sites and countless artifacts, including the Apollo 11 lander, Neil Armstrong's first footprint, and the goodwill messages disc from 72 nations,' describes WMF CEO Bénédicte de Montclair. 'Existing frameworks like the Outer Space Treaty and Artemis Accords acknowledge space heritage but lack enforcement mechanisms,' she says. 'International cooperation—modeled after the Antarctic Treaty—could establish binding protections.' The United States isn't necessarily focused on founding habitats where historic moon sites or artifacts exist. NASA's Moon to Mars plan, which aims to establish homes on the surfaces of the moon and Mars (perhaps with the application of Rothschild's research), is focused on the South Pole. However, that isn't to say that other astronauts—or even private companies—with the ability to reach the moon wouldn't potentially damage these important sites. By 2040, NASA aims to have constructed long-term habitats on the lunar surface and will later do the same on Mars. To do so, however, isn't as simple as blasting traditional framing materials up to space during the next rocket launch. In addition to wanting to avoid steel or wood beams occupying valuable square footage inside spaceships, building on the moon requires specific architecture that can handle its thin, non-breathable atmosphere, which causes extreme temperature fluctuations and offers no protection from radiation nor meteoroid impacts. To that end, some NASA projects explore using the moon's own surface material to construct our future homes in combination with advanced building technologies currently being perfected here on Earth. 'Earth-based [building] innovations—focused on thermal regulation, resource efficiency, and structural resilience—serve as a foundation for designing lunar habitats that can withstand extreme temperatures, radiation, and micrometeorite impacts, ensuring long-term human survival beyond Earth,' explains Irene Gallou, a senior partner at architecture firm Foster + Partners, which has been working with NASA on designs for lunar and Martian habitats since 2015. Foster + Partners's lunar designs, which were on view recently at the Kennedy Center exhibition 'Earth to Space: Arts Breaking the Sky,' will 'rely on 3D printing, robotic assembly, and leveraging local materials derived from lunar regolith [the moon's topsoil] to create sustainable, cost-effective habitats,' Gallou says. Similar to 3D-printed homes on Earth, the building process would require that autonomous robotic printers, and perhaps inflatable scaffolding, be delivered to the site before construction can begin. A regolith material mix could take the place of typical concrete or mortar. Rothschild's fungal mycelia structures offer an even greener building method, which could eschew the need for large machine deliveries. 'On Earth, 'life' is a very common building material, from animal skins and bones in very early habitats to the wooden structures of today,' she explains. 'There are a lot of great reasons for biological materials—we have chosen one that should be ideal off-planet.' Adding to the list of benefits, a dark-colored fungi could mean stronger protections from UV rays and solar and galactic radiation. Plus it could be composted when no longer needed. 'It also has great biophilic psychological properties,' Rothschild adds, referencing the idea that incorporating nature into the built environment can reduce stress and improve cognitive function for residents, among other benefits. Lunar habitats would likely be located where the moon can offer the best resources. Rothschild's research, for example, explores the idea that fungus could grow lunar housing on site—just add water. There is evidence of ice in the deep, shadowed craters on the moon's South Pole—hence, where NASA and China are concentrating current missions—but harnessing it will be difficult. One solution Rothschild's team is exploring is pre-growing mycelia with wood chips inside an inflatable structure on Earth, then popping it up after transport to the moon to allow the structure to solidify. 'We would hope to use water that is already available on the moon to save mass required to carry water from Earth,' she adds. Aside from potential water sources, the lunar South Pole is a good location for habitats due to its 'near constant illumination, ideal for generating power via solar cells,' Gallou says. Foster + Partners and Branch Technology recently designed and prototyped a 164-foot-tall power-collecting solar tower for NASA, which could generate energy for self-sufficient live-work structures. Like on Earth, humans in lunar habitats will need the essentials—food, water, and shelter. If the Moon proves it can provide all three, it could become a place that we also call home. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest More Great Stories From AD Not a subscriber? Join AD for print and digital access now. Pamela Anderson's Renaissance Started in Her Home Garden: 'That's Where I Found Myself Again' The Best Country to Live in: Our Top Picks for 2025 Inside Julio Torres's Williamsburg Mysterious Palace
Mint
3 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Rothschild & Co names Aalok Shah as new India head
Mumbai: Rothschild & Co has appointed Aalok Shah as the head of global advisory for India, succeeding Chandresh Ruparel, the firm said in a statement on Wednesday. Shah, who joined Rothschild in 2006, was named co-head of its India business last year. He has worked extensively across Mumbai and London. In his new role, he will lead the next phase for growth for Rothschild & Co's advisory business in India, the company said. Ruparel will transition to the role of senior advisor after more than two decades of building Rothschild's India franchise. He will provide strategic counsel, mentor senior bankers, and continue to support key corporate client relationships, it added. Rothschild & Co, a family-controlled and independent firm, employs around 4,600 people across 40 countries. Its services span global advisory, wealth and asset management, and Five Arrows—its alternative assets division. The global advisory arm provides M&A and financing advice to large and mid-sized companies, private equity firms, entrepreneurs, families, and governments. In India, the Paris-headquartered firm has recently expanded its offerings to include equity capital markets (ECM) advisory. Its services now cover equity fundraising, strategic capital, debt advisory, and restructuring across sectors such as automotive, consumer and retail, energy and power, financial institutions, healthcare, industrials, life sciences, technology/media/telecom, and transport and infrastructure. In healthcare, Rothschild recently advised TPG and Evercare on the sale of a controlling stake in Care Hospitals to Blackstone in 2023, advised on the sale of a majority stake in Ideal Cures to Colorcon the same year, and on the sale of Oaknet Healthcare to Eris Lifesciences in 2022.
Business Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
Vietnam's imprisoned tycoon seeks government nod for 930 trillion dong restructuring plan
[HO CHI MINH CITY] Imprisoned for orchestrating Vietnam's biggest financial fraud, property mogul Truong My Lan is seeking the government's nod for a 12-year, 930 trillion dong (S$45.5 billion) restructuring plan that proposes the involvement of global financial heavyweights Rothschild and UBS, as well as consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal and Singapore-based Greenmark Construction. According to recent local media reports, the proposal – submitted separately by Lan from jail and by her real estate group Van Thinh Phat (VTP) to the authorities – outlines a road map to mobilise capital for property projects and restructure Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), from which she embezzled 304 trillion dong. The road map includes asset recovery, project revenue generation, and strategic investor participation in a bid to remedy the losses and reduce Lan's sentence by repaying at least three-fourths of the embezzled money. On Jun 18, Lan, currently detained at the T17 Detention Centre in Ho Chi Minh City, held a working session with representatives of her group and two German advisory firms that have agreed in principle to provide US$3 billion to fund the proposed plan. In a May letter to the authorities, she said that her decades of real estate experience and deep knowledge of the 1,166 secured assets for loans from SCB put her in the best position to turn them into 'golden geese' – income-generating assets that could help the state recover its losses. The latest 12-year plan reflects a last-ditch bid to secure leniency, as Vietnamese law allows a death sentence to be commuted if at least three-fourths of the embezzled funds are repaid. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 8.30 am Asean Business Business insights centering on South-east Asia's fast-growing economies. Sign Up Sign Up Rothschild, Alvarez & Marshal, and UBS were invited as strategic partners for international capital mobilisation, while Germania Helvetica Group and Milcon Gulf are being tapped for their expertise in corporate and bank restructuring, according to VTP's proposal cited by online outlet VnExpress. Singapore-based Greenmark Construction also features among the invited partners, along with local property developers NovaGroup and Hung Thinh. Lan was sentenced to death in 2024 for embezzling billions of dollars, bribery, bond fraud, and money laundering. She will be spared from the death penalty following a law change on Jun 25. Lan has been ordered to repay 674 trillion dong to SCB and an additional 30 trillion dong to bond investors. The Business Times had reported that Lan's prior effort to secure foreign support saw Malaysian tycoon Vincent Tan, founder of the Berjaya Group, agree to acquire the Sterling Residence development. This was part of her broader asset-recovery strategy, but there has been no official announcement on the progress or outcome of that plan. A three-pronged plan Under the proposed remedy scheme, VTP and its group of investors will disburse an initial US$2 billion in capital immediately upon receiving government approval. This first phase aims to stabilise SCB's operations, ensure liquidity for deposited funds, repay overdue debts, supplement working capital, and fund the completion of several large-scale, viable projects. The second phase, spanning the next five years, will see investors deploy some US$8 billion raised from partners and investment funds to develop legally cleared projects, with the aim of generating revenue from these assets. In the final phase, over the following seven years, investors plan to raise additional financing from domestic and international lenders to support major development projects, projected to yield around 680 trillion dong in revenue. Key projects include prime real estate in Ho Chi Minh City, such as 87 Cong Quynh Street, 289 Tran Hung Dao Street, the Nguyen Hue-Amigo Quadrangle, and Mui Den Do (the Saigon Peninsula). During this period, VTP expects to use the generated income from the three phases to repay the special loans from the State Bank of Vietnam – the country's central bank – and fulfil other financial obligations. SCB had previously received a multibillion-dollar bailout from the central bank following a 2022 bank run, which was triggered by the arrest of Lan, the lender's de facto owner, Reuters reported in March. No further rescue from central bank VnExpress noted that under Lan's 12-year remedy plan, SCB would not require additional loans from the central bank. This differs from an earlier proposal made by Sun Group, which was mandated by the central bank in November 2023 to assist SCB, the Reuters report indicated. In February this year, the developer submitted a 15-year rescue road map that indicated the central bank's lending could reach 657 trillion dong in the first year of restructuring the troubled lender, which could then start repaying the debts from year 14, subject to market conditions. In April, Dau Tu newspaper reported that the central bank was also drafting a plan to restructure SCB and was seeking suggestions from relevant bodies, though details of the plan and its submission timeline were not disclosed. The central bank and government have consistently appealed to the private sector, particularly foreign investors, to support the troubled lender. Vietnam's standard foreign ownership cap in commercial banks is 30 per cent, recently extended to 49 per cent for selected lenders that have taken over struggling peers. As at end-February this year, the non-performing loan ratio at SCB – one of the five ailing banks that are under special supervision by the authorities – stood at 98.5 per cent, Viet Dragon Securities Corporation wrote in a recent analysis, citing a report from the central bank.
Business Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
Vietnam's death-row tycoon seeks government nod for 930 trillion dong restructuring plan
[HO CHI MINH CITY] Facing death row for orchestrating Vietnam's biggest financial fraud, property mogul Truong My Lan is seeking the government's nod for a 12-year, 930 trillion dong (S$45.5 billion) restructuring plan that proposes the involvement of global financial heavyweights Rothschild and UBS, as well as consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal and Singapore-based Greenmark Construction. According to recent local media reports, the proposal – submitted separately by Lan from jail and by her real estate group Van Thinh Phat (VTP) to the authorities – outlines a road map to mobilise capital for property projects and restructure Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), from which she embezzled 304 trillion dong. The road map includes asset recovery, project revenue generation, and strategic investor participation in a bid to remedy the losses and reduce Lan's sentence by repaying at least three-fourths of the embezzled money. On Jun 18, Lan, currently detained at the T17 Detention Centre in Ho Chi Minh City, held a working session with representatives of her group and two German advisory firms that have agreed in principle to provide US$3 billion to fund the proposed plan. In a May letter to the authorities, she said that her decades of real estate experience and deep knowledge of the 1,166 secured assets for loans from SCB put her in the best position to turn them into 'golden geese' – income-generating assets that could help the state recover its losses. The latest 12-year plan reflects a last-ditch bid to secure leniency, as Vietnamese law allows a death sentence to be commuted if at least three-fourths of the embezzled funds are repaid. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 8.30 am Asean Business Business insights centering on South-east Asia's fast-growing economies. Sign Up Sign Up Rothschild, Alvarez & Marshal, and UBS were invited as strategic partners for international capital mobilisation, while Germania Helvetica Group and Milcon Gulf are being tapped for their expertise in corporate and bank restructuring, according to VTP's proposal cited by online outlet VnExpress. Singapore-based Greenmark Construction also features among the invited partners, along with local property developers NovaGroup and Hung Thinh. Lan was sentenced to death in 2024 for embezzling billions of dollars, bribery, bond fraud, and money laundering. She has been ordered to repay 674 trillion dong to SCB and an additional 30 trillion dong to bond investors. The Business Times had reported that Lan's prior effort to secure foreign support saw Malaysian tycoon Vincent Tan, founder of the Berjaya Group, agree to acquire the Sterling Residence development. This was part of her broader asset-recovery strategy, but there has been no official announcement on the progress or outcome of that plan. A three-pronged plan Under the proposed remedy scheme, VTP and its group of investors will disburse an initial US$2 billion in capital immediately upon receiving government approval. This first phase aims to stabilise SCB's operations, ensure liquidity for deposited funds, repay overdue debts, supplement working capital, and fund the completion of several large-scale, viable projects. The second phase, spanning the next five years, will see investors deploy some US$8 billion raised from partners and investment funds to develop legally cleared projects, with the aim of generating revenue from these assets. In the final phase, over the following seven years, investors plan to raise additional financing from domestic and international lenders to support major development projects, projected to yield around 680 trillion dong in revenue. Key projects include prime real estate in Ho Chi Minh City, such as 87 Cong Quynh Street, 289 Tran Hung Dao Street, the Nguyen Hue-Amigo Quadrangle, and Mui Den Do (the Saigon Peninsula). During this period, VTP expects to use the generated income from the three phases to repay the special loans from the State Bank of Vietnam – the country's central bank – and fulfil other financial obligations. SCB had previously received a multibillion-dollar bailout from the central bank following a 2022 bank run, which was triggered by the arrest of Lan, the lender's de facto owner, Reuters reported in March. No further rescue from central bank VnExpress noted that under Lan's 12-year remedy plan, SCB would not require additional loans from the central bank. This differs from an earlier proposal made by Sun Group, which was mandated by the central bank in November 2023 to assist SCB, the Reuters report indicated. In February this year, the developer submitted a 15-year rescue road map that indicated the central bank's lending could reach 657 trillion dong in the first year of restructuring the troubled lender, which could then start repaying the debts from year 14, subject to market conditions. In April, Dau Tu newspaper reported that the central bank was also drafting a plan to restructure SCB and was seeking suggestions from relevant bodies, though details of the plan and its submission timeline were not disclosed. The central bank and government have consistently appealed to the private sector, particularly foreign investors, to support the troubled lender. Vietnam's standard foreign ownership cap in commercial banks is 30 per cent, recently extended to 49 per cent for selected lenders that have taken over struggling peers. As at end-February this year, the non-performing loan ratio at SCB – one of the five ailing banks that are under special supervision by the authorities – stood at 98.5 per cent, Viet Dragon Securities Corporation wrote in a recent analysis, citing a report from the central bank.
