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Vietnam’s securities firms woo overseas partners
The State Securities Commission (SSC) has given the go-ahead for the Bien Viet Securities Joint Stock Company to sell more than 1.7 million shares, a stake exceeding 10 percent of its total charter capital, to the Woori Securities and Investment Co. Ltd from the Republic of Korea (RoK).
This sale will allow Bien Viet to raise its charter capital from 100 billion VND to 135 billion VND.
The Bao Viet Securities Joint Stock Company (BVSC) has also revealed that several foreign financial institutions have expressed a desire to enter into a strategic partnership with BVSC.
This continues the recent trend of securities companies turning to foreign partners to strengthen their own capacity in order to avoid losses. According to the Association of Securities Businesses, up to 70-80 percent of the nation’s securities companies faced losses in 2008.
However, pundits claim that securities companies are facing difficulties in finding foreign partners this year as foreign investors are hardly clamouring to invest in securities companies at the moment, due to the recent poor performance of the domestic market and the Vietnamese economy weathering the storm of the global economic crisis.
During their search for overseas partners, many domestic securities companies have had to adopt makeshift measures to retrench expenditure, including a streamlining of staff and a narrowing of their scope of operations.
Pundits suggested that securities companies could increase their profits and market share by upgrading and developing their technology and information systems, launching prominent product ranges and improving their management capacity and the professional skills of their staff.
Since 2007, the market has witnessed several successful business relationships between domestic securities businesses and their foreign partners.
Most worthy of note were the Au Lac Securities Company, which sold 4.9 million shares, or a 49 percent stake in the company, to the Technology CX Company from the Cayman Islands , and the Huong Viet Securities Company, which transferred 14.5 million shares, or a 48.33 percent stake, to its Singaporean partner, Morgan Stanley.
VNA
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