Dutch firm has eye on troubled Bianfishco

Madame Hien has been heralded in the local press as well as the trade press, including in SeafoodSource for building Can Tho-based Bianfishco into one of Vietnam’s largest pangasius processors and exporters. (Click here to read SeafoodSource Contributing Editor Mike Urch’s 2010 column “Glitz, glamor and pangasius.”)

But the exposure of the company’s financial difficulties has caused quite a stir in Vietnam, and now Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung is getting involved, requesting that Bianfishco be inspected and that a report be submitted to him by 23 March, according to VietNamNet Bridge.

Tri told VNS on Wednesday that all of the company’s properties were audited and said to be worth more than VND 2,700 billion (USD 128million) and that the company would be able to balance its existing debts. The VNS report did not name the Dutch financial firm interested in acquiring Bianfishco’s processing facility.