After PNJ published the documents for its extraordinary shareholders' meeting on September 25, many investors latched onto a comforting piece of arithmetic: the loss expected for 2026 comes mostly from a provision, and without that provision the company is still profitable. The figure being cited is roughly VND 801 billion in after-tax profit, excluding a VND 7,071 billion loss provision tied to the company's buyback policy for jewelry already sold.CafeF
On the numbers, that argument is not baseless. But VND 801 billion is a forecast for the whole year. PNJ has also just reported actual results for the past two months, and they tell a different story about the "core" business.
The case for "strip out the provision and it still makes money"
The bull case deserves a fair hearing first. A provision is an estimated cost for goods customers may bring back to the counter in the future. It rests on assumptions, and assumptions can be revised as customer behavior becomes clearer.
Vietcap notes that PNJ is using a conservative assumption: an 80% return rate, compared with the 28.8% rate its first-half financial statements applied to the 2020–2026 period.Vietcap If actual returns come in lighter, part of the paper loss will never materialize. Bottom-fishers therefore have a reason to treat VND 801 billion as what is left of the business once the accounting noise is set aside.
The weak spot is the July and August data, a period in which PNJ did not point to any new provision to explain its results.
July and August: revenue up, profit flips to a loss
According to PNJ, net revenue for July and August 2026 reached VND 5,695 billion, up 4.5% year on year. Gross profit fell 45.4% to just VND 550 billion. Gross margin, the share of each dong of revenue left after cost of goods, came in at around 10%, versus about 18.5% a year earlier.Markettimes
The bottom line was an after-tax loss of VND 61 billion, against a profit of VND 325 billion in the same period last year.Nguoi Quan Sat
What stands out is how PNJ itself explained the loss: a weaker gross margin, an unfavorable diamond market, and the seasonal lull of the seventh lunar month.Markettimes Every one of those relates to selling jewelry, not to a new provision.
One limitation should be stated plainly. The disclosure does not break out how much of this loss is linked to the buyback program. Between July 1 and September 3, PNJ bought back nearly VND 5,000 billion of goods from customers, incurring a VND 1,446 billion loss according to its reviewed half-year financial statements.CafeF That loss belongs to the provision layer. The VND 61 billion loss is the figure PNJ itself attributes to margin, demand and seasonality.
Put side by side, VND 801 billion is a number on a plan. Over the past two months, by the company's own account, selling jewelry has not been generating a profit.
The lunar calendar explains only part of it
The strongest defense of PNJ is seasonality. The seventh lunar month is when Vietnamese households avoid big purchases, weddings thin out, and the jewelry trade enters its low season. This year the calendar also fell less kindly.
In 2026, the first day of the seventh lunar month fell on August 13, so roughly the last 19 days of August sat inside the inauspicious month.Suc khoe & Doi song In 2025, the full moon of the seventh month fell on September 6, meaning the month only began around August 23.VietNamNet Last year's comparison period therefore contained about 9 low-season days, while this year had about 10 more.
That effect is real. But it runs into two facts.
The first is that retail revenue barely moved. Retail sales in July and August fell only 1.5% year on year.Markettimes Seasonality hits foot traffic, so if the loss were mainly about empty stores, revenue should have dropped far more. Instead, goods kept moving at roughly the same scale while the profit on each dong of sales fell by nearly half. That is a margin problem, not a traffic problem.
The second is the size of the swing. The same period in 2025 was also the industry's familiar low season, and PNJ still earned VND 325 billion. The gap between a VND 325 billion profit and a VND 61 billion loss is about VND 386 billion over two months. It is hard to pin most of that on a shift of roughly 10 lunar-calendar days.
A shift in revenue mix, but not a large enough one
The second explanation often raised is revenue mix. In July and August, wholesale revenue rose 78%, lifting its share from 11.7% to 20.4%. 24K gold revenue fell 24.9%, with its share dropping from 26.1% to 19.2%. Retail, the highest-margin segment, slipped from 61.6% to 59.5% of the total.Markettimes
Wholesale carries thinner margins than retail, so its extra weight drags the blended margin down. On the other hand, 24K gold is the thinnest-margin segment of all, and its share shrank by almost 7 percentage points. The two moves largely cancel out, while retail lost only about 2 points of share. A mix shift of that size is unlikely to push the blended margin from around 18.5% to around 10%.
Most of the margin compression therefore likely sits inside the segments themselves, especially retail jewelry. Possible explanations include discounting to retain customers after the diamond incident, returned goods being resold at lower prices, or high raw gold costs that selling prices have not caught up with. PNJ has not disclosed margins by segment, so these causes cannot yet be weighed against one another. Vietcap likewise sees risk on both fronts: a higher provisioning assumption, and a core business performing less well than expected.Vietcap
VND 801 billion needs a normal fourth quarter
For the first eight months, Vietcap puts PNJ's after-tax profit attributable to shareholders at VND 668 billion, down 54% year on year. The full-year VND 801 billion figure is already nearly 77% below the original plan of VND 3,409 billion.Vietcap The VND 668 billion already includes provisions booked in the first half, so it cannot be compared directly with the VND 801 billion, which excludes all provisions. What can be said with confidence is that reaching VND 801 billion requires the remaining months to return to profit.
The fourth quarter is the jewelry industry's main selling season, driven by weddings and pre-Tet shopping. At PNJ, fourth-quarter net profit made up about 32.1% of the full year in 2023, 34.6% in 2024 and 43.1% in 2025. In Q4 2025 alone, the company earned about VND 1,218 billion out of VND 2,828.5 billion for the year.
That dependence is the key point. The more Q4 matters, the more a weak Q4 skews the whole year. The VND 801 billion plan assumes this year's peak season runs close to normal, yet PNJ enters it with a gross margin of around 10%. Wedding season can lift revenue. The question is whether margins come back with it.
Shareholder proposals put liquidity first
What PNJ is putting before shareholders shows how management views its cash position. The company estimates a funding need of VND 8,000 billion over roughly the next three years, with a concrete plan to be presented at the extraordinary meeting on October 21. The family of Ms. Cao Thi Ngoc Dung, Chairwoman of the Board of PNJ, has disbursed about VND 700 billion in loans to the company to shore up working capital ahead of peak season. PNJ also plans to close 25–30 stores and open about 10 new ones in 2026.Markettimes On dividends, the Board has proposed no cash dividend for 2026 and a cut in the 2025 dividend from 20% to 10%.CafeF
PNJ says its current resources still cover its planned payment obligations.Markettimes Even so, withholding all cash dividends, borrowing from the chairwoman's family and planning a VND 8,000 billion raise at the same time signal that liquidity comes first and profit second. The form of the capital raise has not been disclosed. If part of it involves issuing new shares, the issue price will be referenced to the current market price, which sits near multi-year lows.
September 28: several sellers at once
On September 28, PNJ fell by the daily limit to VND 30,700 per share, its lowest level in nearly six years and roughly 65% below its March levels.CafeF In the same session, the VN-Index fell just 4.43 points, or 0.25%, to 1,780.68, with 104 gainers and 248 decliners.
The limit-down move coincided with several pieces of news. The July-August results were one force. Mr. Cao Ngoc Duy, younger brother of PNJ's Chairwoman, registering to sell 9 million shares between October 1 and October 30 was another.CafeF Broader sentiment was also weak, with decliners outnumbering gainers by more than two to one. The data cannot precisely separate each factor's contribution. Still, PNJ hitting its floor while the index slipped only 0.25% suggests company-specific news weighed more heavily than market mood.
A more accurate picture
The belief that "the loss is just a provision" is half right. The VND 7,071 billion provision is indeed an estimate and may change with customer behavior. But the rest of the business is not standing still while that provision gets sorted out. Over the past two months, by PNJ's own explanation, gross margin nearly halved and selling turned loss-making, while seasonality and revenue mix explain only part of it.
VND 801 billion should therefore be read as a scenario that needs a Q4 recovery, not as a secure floor. Any valuation built on "the core still makes money" holds only if gross margin comes back. This view would reverse only if September and third-quarter results show margins moving clearly off the 10% range.
Signals that will test this in October:
- September results and the Q3 report: whether gross margin climbs from around 10% back toward last year's 18.5%.
- The VND 8,000 billion funding plan presented on October 21: the share of new equity and its pricing will determine dilution for existing shareholders.
- Mr. Duy's 9 million-share sale from October 1 to October 30: whether selling pressure from people related to management has stopped.