ANZ reviewing relationships
Dam Thuy, Country Head and General Manager of Australia and New Zealand Banking (ANZ) Vietnam, on March 23 said that the bank was ‘reconsidering relations with its partners in order to ensure the fulfillment of strategic goals’.
This was the first response made by ANZ Vietnam after information was released that ANZ was planning to transfer a part or all of its Sacombank stakes this year. ANZ is now holding 9.87% of Sacombank’s stakes.
However, Thuy stressed that to date, ANZ remains a strategic shareholder of Sacombank, and ANZ still does not have an intention of making public the future of the strategic investment of ANZ in Sacombank.
Prior to that, according to sources, ANZ Vietnam had a meeting with the leadership of Sacombank on March 16 with the participation of Sacombank’s Chairman of Board of Directors and General Director during which the two sides discussed business results and the strategic relationship between the two.
At the meeting, the two parties recorded the fact that ANZ was planning to transfer a part or all of its capital contribution in Sacombank.
In August 2005, ANZ spent $27mil to purchase the stakes of Sacombank, becoming the third foreign shareholder in the local bank. The purchase took place at the peak of the movement of local joint-stock banks’ selling of stakes to foreign partners.
In related news, ANZ Bank, has been named Vietnam’s Best Retail Bank for the second consecutive year at the Asian Banker Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards Programme.
VietNamNet, TBKTVN
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