Mekong Securities, run by Indochina Capital, closed it’s office in Hanoi last week. The surprise announcement was made to the Hanoi staff about a month ago. Operations will be moved down to the Ho Chi Minh City office.
Though some could blame the current stock market situation for the closure of the Hanoi office. the reality is that Mekong Securities was hit hard before the stock market fell in Vietnam when some of it’s best and brightest staff left the company to form their own private equity and/or consulting firms. A trend that has/will follow other security and equity firms in this country.
Rumors are flying that Mekong Securities will shut down even in Ho Chi Minh city though this will be highly unlikely. Indochina Capital will still need them to trade stocks in both exchanges.
I believe that Dragon Securities has also quietly left the securities market. I think they got hit with about 80% loss and figured that there’s no more future left.
The securities game is highly capital intensive so when you get burned, I guess its game over.
In fact the game just started like China 8 years ago. Who can survive would be the big winner 😀