The week before Vietnam's FTSE upgrade took effect, PNJ shares showed up in headlines with an attractive number: foreign investors bought a net VND 307 billion worth of stock in the September 18 session alone, the largest single-day figure ever recorded for the stock.CafeF The familiar read snapped into place immediately: foreign money returning to accumulate a deeply discounted retail bellwether, ahead of the forced buying from index funds tracking the FTSE basket. But break that number down session by session and set it against the list of sellers in the same week, and the picture changes entirely.
A Record Number Packed Into One Session
Across all of September, from the 3rd to the 21st, foreign investors were net buyers of PNJ shares to the tune of VND 280.7 billion. That reads like a steady, sustained inflow. In reality, September 18 alone accounted for VND 307 billion in net buying, while the other 12 sessions combined were net sellers of roughly VND 26.4 billion. Strip out that single session, and foreign investors were net sellers of PNJ in September, not buyers.
September 18 was also a session of abnormal volume: 16,584,800 shares changed hands, nearly six times the prior session's 2,910,800 shares, with most of it going through negotiated block trades rather than the order book. The closing price that day rose just 1.36% to VND 37,250, a modest move given the scale of money involved. That is the hallmark of a block trade: the price is agreed in advance between two parties, and the order never competes on the open book, so it doesn't push the price up the way genuine market accumulation would.
The Sellers in the Same Window
Between September 11 and 18, Trần Phương Ngọc Hà, daughter of PNJ Chairwoman Cao Thị Ngọc Dung, sold her entire registered stake of 18 million shares, through both order-matching and negotiated trades, for roughly VND 662 billion.CafeF Her ownership stake dropped from 3.59% to just 0.08%. Days earlier, on September 11, Vice Chairwoman Trần Phương Ngọc Thảo sold 7 million shares via negotiated trade at an average price of about VND 37,000, netting roughly VND 259 billion and reducing her stake from 3.52% to 2.15%.Dân Trí In total, 25 million shares changed hands in the exact window foreign investors set their record.
The exchange doesn't disclose the counterparty on individual negotiated trades, so there's no way to confirm that foreign investors bought directly from either woman. September 18 could equally be explained by a foreign fund rebalancing its portfolio, index funds front-running the FTSE effective date (September 21), or a block trade matched against internal supply; the evidence available isn't enough to settle on a single explanation. But every explanation points to the same conclusion: this was a large block of shares changing hands at a pre-agreed price, not a broad set of investors bidding PNJ higher on the open market. And across the remaining 12 sessions of September, foreign investors stayed net sellers.
The Sale Proceeds Are Flowing Back In, as a Loan
Here's what sets PNJ apart from the insider sell-offs the market is used to seeing: neither daughter pulled the money out of the company. The stated purpose from the start was to fund a loan from Chairwoman Cao Thị Ngọc Dung back to PNJ itself.Thanh Niên
The board approved the framework on September 4: a maximum limit of 5% of total assets per the latest balance sheet, roughly VND 1,000 billion; denominated in VND with no collateral; a maximum term of 12 months from signing; disbursed in multiple tranches.DNSE The interest rate is set by the CEO at each disbursement, referenced against prevailing corporate bond market rates of similar tenor.Thời báo Tài chính Việt Nam
Read one way, this is a commitment: the Chairwoman's family selling personal assets to inject working capital into the company during a rough stretch. Read from a governance angle, the structure moves the Chairwoman's family from shareholder to creditor.Fili An unsecured creditor still gets paid ahead of ordinary shareholders if things deteriorate further. Retail shareholders holding PNJ stock have no equivalent option to swap positions.
Why the Company Needed That Loan
On July 2, Thanh Hóa police indicted 22 people in a cross-border diamond smuggling ring, including the former director of P-Lab, a gemology certification firm wholly owned by PNJ, accused of grinding off GIA laser inscriptions and issuing certificates for smuggled diamonds.Người Quan Sát Customers immediately started returning goods for buyback, and PNJ's buyback policy is a standing obligation the company cannot refuse.
The scale of that wave was far larger than most would assume. From July 1 to 20, PNJ's revenue was VND 1,588 billion, while the value of goods bought back from customers hit VND 5,900 billion; the cumulative buyback figure through July 27 topped VND 7,000 billion.Báo Mới For every dong of sales, the company had to pay out nearly four dong in buybacks. Management publicly acknowledged the liquidity pressure on July 21 and extended payment terms to customers over five installments across 120 days.CafeF
To raise cash, PNJ withdrew VND 3,100 billion in term deposits early during July, roughly 94% of its balance as of June 30, forfeiting accrued interest at a nominal rate of 7-8.8% per year.Người Quan Sát That's the move of a company that needs cash urgently, not one chasing interest income.
The balance sheet at the end of Q2 shows why the room to maneuver had narrowed so much: cash and equivalents down to VND 609 billion, a quick ratio of just 0.53x, and total debt of VND 3,989 billion, all of it short-term, concentrated around August and September maturities. Inventory stood at VND 15,187 billion, and more than VND 4,300 billion of it was already pledged as collateral for existing loans.Người Quan Sát By the time the Chairwoman's loan came together, the assets available to pledge had largely run out, which is exactly why this loan carries no collateral.
The Cost That Hasn't Fully Surfaced Yet
PNJ's audited first-half report, published September 4, absorbed the full shock. Provision expense for the buyback policy rose from VND 1,275 billion in the company's self-reported figures to VND 2,267 billion.VietTimes Q2 net loss came to VND 738.9 billion, versus a VND 437 billion profit in the same quarter of 2025. Cumulative first-half profit still came in positive at VND 728.5 billion, propped up by a strong Q1, but that's down 34.6% year-over-year and 38.4% below PNJ's own self-reported figure from just a month earlier.
Of the VND 2,267 billion provision, VND 1,446 billion covers goods already bought back in practice (nearly VND 5,000 billion of loose diamonds and jewelry, with an estimated loss rate of 28.9%). The remaining VND 821 billion is an estimate for potential future buyback commitments tied to roughly VND 21,000 billion in diamond-related revenue that customers haven't yet returned. That VND 821 billion figure is an assumption, not an expense that has already occurred. If the return rate comes in higher than expected, or the loss rate exceeds 28.9%, the provision will need to expand further in the second half of the year.
What to Watch Next
There is one genuinely positive signal in this file: net operating cash flow for the first half of 2026 came in at VND 1,991 billion, versus a negative VND 108 billion in the same period of 2025, while inventory actually rose by VND 247 billion during the period rather than shrinking. The cash came from core operations, not from selling down stock. On August 20, Thanh Hóa police also concluded that PNJ held complete import documentation and that the smuggled diamonds never entered the company's retail system.FireAnt The legal risk around the origin of the goods has cleared up considerably since July.
But at this stage, foreign flow data is not a reliable signal for reading PNJ. A single negotiated block trade can flip an entire month's cumulative figures, as September just demonstrated. Two numbers carry far more information heading into next quarter: the value of goods customers return for buyback in Q3, and the size of the buyback provision on the Q3 report. Whether the provision expands further beyond the VND 2,267 billion mark will show whether the buyback wave has actually cooled.
The nearest checkpoint is October 21, when PNJ holds an extraordinary shareholder meeting to revise its 2026 business plan.VietnamFinance The scale of the profit-target cut management presents to shareholders will be the company's own first official assessment of how deep this shock really goes. In the September 22 session, PNJ closed at VND 35,800, down 2.98%, its lowest close in September and below the price range where the Chairwoman's family sold out just the week before.