Market warming up, time to restart listing plans
The warming up of the stock market recently has prompted companies to restart their plans to list on the bourse. Meanwhile, some other companies are still delaying their listing plans, hoping to enter the bourse when the VN Index is higher.
Bao Viet Financial Group has consulted its shareholders about a delay of its listing plan till 2009.
In fact, Bao Viet has reasons to delay its listing plan. In the OTC market, Bao Viet shares are trading at VND24-25,000/share, while the IPO average price was VND73,910/share. If Bao Viet entered the bourse at this moment, it would not know what to set an opening price at. The IPO average price would be overly high for now and not accepted by investors. Meanwhile, the OTC market price proves to be overly low, and might turn off strategic shareholders and investors.
A leader of the financial group said that listing is not an urgent task for the group for now as the volume of shares for transactions is not big. The state is now still holding 77.54% of Bao Viet’s stakes, while HSBC is holding 10% and Vinashin 3.56%.
Vietcombank is now in the same situation as Bao Viet. However, the bank has many times confirmed its determination to list on the bourse this year. Vietcombank shares are now trading at VND50-52,000/share on the OTC market, which means that investors have lost 50% of their money if noting that the IPO average price was VND107,572/share.
Vietcombank’s Chairman Nguyen Hoa Binh told the press that the bank would list on the bourse in 2008 despite some problems as the bank does not want to break the promise it made to investors. Binh said that determining the debut price is just a technical issue, and that Vietcombank would accept the market price.
Other enterprises have their own reasons for deciding whether or not to list on the bourse at this moment. Pham Thanh Tung, Deputy General Director of Viet Duc Steel Tube Company, said that the Hanoi Securities Trading Centre is checking documents for the last time before approving the company’s listing.
“I think it is the right time to list on the bourse, since the market is warming up, which is attracting investors,” Tung said.
A securities analyst also said that enterprises should think of listing on the bourse now, stressing that low prices should not be the main reason for further delays of listing plans. The shares of the enterprises are still being traded on the OTC market, though their shares are not listed. Meanwhile, it is clear that unlisted shares have lower liquidity than listed ones.
VNN
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