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VietinBank to go ahead with share issue despite gloomy market
Vietnam Bank for Industry & Trade, the nation’s fourth-biggest lender by assets, is planning an initial sale of shares on December 25 though the nation’s benchmark index has been Asia’s worst performer this year.
The Hanoi-based lender known as VietinBank will sell 53.6 million shares, according to a statement posted on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange’s website Tuesday. The government approved the sale in September.
Loan growth is decelerating as Vietnam is poised for the slowest economic expansion since 2000 because the deepening global crisis is slowing exports. The benchmark VN Index has fallen 67 percent this year, heading for the biggest annual loss since postwar Vietnam started its first exchange in 2000.
VietinBank will stick with the planned share sale this month, its director of finance and accounting, Nguyen Van Trung, said November 10. “Investors may be more cautious in this financial situation, but we are very confident about their appetite for our shares,” he said at the time. Officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
VietinBank’s assets amount to about 18 percent of the total at Vietnamese lenders, the central bank said in a statement on November 10 without providing figures.
The Hanoi-based lender’s assets worth more than VND200 trillion (US$11.8 billion) as of June 30, Trung said last month. VietinBank’s registered capital is VND13.4 trillion, according to the exchange’s statement Tuesday.
Bloomberg
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