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Vietnam lender BIDV to sell 3 pct stake in IPO
BIDV, Vietnam's second-largest lender by assets, said on Wednesday it would sell 3 percent of its shares in its initial public offering later this year and then sell a 15 percent stake to a foreign strategic investor.
The stake to be sold to the foreign investor could be raised to 20 percent of the Hanoi-based lender's registered capital in the future, the bank's chairman, Tran Bac Ha, said.
The bank was formally known as the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam. BIDV will auction its shares on Dec. 28 and will list on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange by the end of the third quarter ending September 2012, the statement said.
The share sale to the foreign investor will be conducted in 2012 and advised by Morgan Stanley, Ha said at a news conference to announce the lender's IPO. He declined to name the starting price of its share sales, saying it was subject to government approval.
Vietnam has been selling off pieces of state-owned enterprises for the past two decades, dubbing the process "equitisation" rather than privatisation. BIDV now joins the list of major state firms, including national carrier Vietnam Airlines, top fuel distributor Petrolimex and the Vietnam Steel Corp (VNSteel), the country's biggest steel manufacturer, which have received the green light for such sales.
Vietnam Airlines has yet to announce details of its IPO. Petrolimex and VNSteel have conducted initial public offerings earlier this year but neither of them has listed shares. IPOs and share listings occur at two separate stages in Vietnam.
BIDV said its total assets stood at an estimated 403 trillion dong ($19.2 billion) as of Nov. 30, a rise of 10 percent from the end of 2010. BIDV's capital adequacy ratio stood at 10 percent currently, in line with Vietnam's central bank requirements. The lender's IPO comes as Vietnam's stock markets have been falling following investor concern over inflation, high interest rates and poor performance by listed companies.
The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange index fell 0.58 percent to close at 380.69 on Wednesday, having fallen 21.45 percent so far this year. The government has adopted several measures to boost the stock markets, said Vu Bang, chairman of the State Securities Commission.
The government will allow exchange-traded funds and open-end funds to operate and seek to monitor indirect investment inflows in an attempt to support the sliding stock market, the Finance Ministry said earlier this month. ($1=21,000 dong)
reuters
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