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BIDV delays share sale after market plunge
Vietnam has allowed the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), the country’s second-biggest lender by assets, to delay a planned share sale until next year after the nation’s stock benchmark plunged.
Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung agreed to choose December 31 as the starting date for evaluating the Hanoi-based bank’s businesses, a preparatory step for its initial public offering, according to a statement on the government’s website.
Companies on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange have plunged this year, making the benchmark VN Index Asia’s worst performing measure. The index’s 67 percent slump has already forced the government to delay BIDV’s share sale twice this year.
Government sales of shares in state-owned enterprises as part of a two-decade-old process of shifting to a market-based economy have slowed. It sold shares in 73 companies in the first 11 months, compared with a full-year target of 262, the Ministry of Finance said earlier this month.
The “equitization” program is lagging behind schedule because of “many difficulties” in the economy and “volatility” in the stock market, the ministry said.
Bloomberg
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