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Vietnam's Masan unit to raise $413 mln via bonds
A unit of Vietnam food producer Masan Group agreed with eight banks to sell 9 trillion dong ($413.32 million) worth of bonds, in what would be one of the country's biggest-ever domestic bond sales by a private firm.
Masan Consumer Holdings (MCH) will sell its five-year bonds to banks including Vietcombank, the country's biggest listed lender by market value, to help Masan Group pay debts, reduce costs and bolster the group's balance sheet, Masan said in a statement.
The bond sale would be one of the biggest to be offered by a local firm on Vietnam's capital market, according to several experts, as Vietnam's private sector firms seek to raise funds.
MCH raised 2.1 trillion dong from a sale of 10-year bonds in December last year.
Tong Minh Tuan, head of investment banking at Vietcombank Securities, which is handling the bond issue, told Reuters that Vietcombank would buy MCG bonds worth 5.4 trillion dong and BIDV , Vietnam's top partly-private lender by assets, would buy 900 billion dong worth.
Other lenders include Military Commercial Bank, which would take 300 billion dong of the bonds, he added.
Masan's total debt of 27.2 trillion dong accounted for 55 percent of its assets at the end of the first quarter, down slightly from 58 percent at Dec. 31, 2014, according to its un-audited January-March financial statements. ($1=21,775 dong) (Reporting by Mai Nguyen; Editing by Martin Petty and Louise Heavens).
reuters
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