|
Agriseco raises $18 million from share sale
Agribank Securities Inc., the brokerage unit of Vietnam’s biggest lender, raised VND316 billion (US$18 million) in an initial public offering after investor demand exceeded the number of shares for sale.
The Hanoi-based brokerage, known as Agriseco, sold 30 million shares at an auction organized by the Hanoi Securities Trading Center, Chairman Ha Huy Toan said on Tuesday.
Agriseco sold stock after the benchmark VN-Index slumped 66 percent last year, making it among the worst-performing markets in Asia.
Local companies including Joint-Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam are planning share sales this year, anticipating greater demand for new equities.
“In the context of the difficult stock market situation, the auction is a result of our luck,” Toan said. “It’s because we set reasonable initial prices, and most important of all, we are backed by the [country’s] largest bank.”
The average winning offer was VND10,521 a share, close to the minimum VND10,500 required from bidders, the Hanoi Securities Trading Center, where smaller companies typically trade instead of the country’s bigger bourse in Ho Chi Minh City, said after the auction. The highest bid was VND13,500 a share.
“We hope to list shares on the exchange as soon as possible,” Toan said. The company also plans to sell shares in Hong Kong at some point, he said.
Agriseco, a unit of Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, had assets of about VND8.5 trillion (US$488.36 million) by the end of November, said Toan. The company’s profit dropped to VND101.6 billion (nearly $5.84 million) last year from VND129 billion ($7.41 million) in 2007, he said.
Bloomberg
|
