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Agribank brokerage to raise $19 million in IPO
Agribank Securities, the brokerage arm of Vietnam’s top lender, Agribank, said Friday it would raise at least US$19 million by selling a quarter of its shares in an initial public offering (IPO) next month.
Hanoi-based Agribank Securities, or Agriseco, said it would sell around 30 million shares on January 6 at a starting price for bids of VND10,500 ($0.64) per share, valuing the firm at nearly $77 million.
The firm said it was conducting the IPO on its own, without any outside underwriters.
Proceeds from the IPO would boost Agriseco’s financial strength and bolster its debt business, an Agriseco official told Reuters.
“Our company will set aside 60 percent of funds for bond trading, 20 percent to improve services such as repo or margin trading and another 20 percent for securities trading,” the official, who declined to be identified, said.
Agriseco would raise its capital base by 71 percent to VND1.2 trillion after the IPO, making it the country’s largest brokerage in terms of registered capital, she said.
Agriseco’s IPO will follow a share sale by Vietnam’s fourth-largest lender by assets, state-run Vietinbank, whose IPO is scheduled for December 25 and will raise at least $65 million through the sale of 4 percent of its stock.
Some traders said investors were lukewarm about Vietnamese IPOs at the moment, especially financial sector offerings, because of the spreading global financial crisis and the fact that the country’s main stock market had fallen nearly 70 percent this year.
However, Agriseco said it had found institutional investors to back its IPO, and traders said investors might feel reassured by knowing Agribank was behind the brokerage.
Agribank had total assets of VND372.3 trillion by late September, up 14 percent from the end of 2007.
Reuters
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