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Vietnam's Military Bank seeks double foreign ownership limit this month
Military Commercial Bank (MB), Vietnam's fourth biggest listed lender by market value, expects to offer foreign investors an additional 10 percent stake this month in a bid to improve liquidity in the stock, a senior executive said.
The stake would double the amount of shares held by foreigners, Vice Chairman Luu Trung Thai said in an email to Reuters, adding that no investors has been pre-selected.
Vietnam allows foreigners to own up to 30 percent of domestic banks and Thai said the bank would hold on to the remaining 10 percent, which has been reserved for strategic investors, for now.
Shares in MB are popular with foreign investors largely because of the bank's relatively low bad debt ratio but trading has been capped by the 10 percent ownership limit.
"(The move) seems to be an attempt to improve liquidity in the stock and perhaps enable existing bank holders such as Maritime Bank to reduce their stake below 5 percent," said Fiachra Mac Cana, managing director and head of research at Ho Chi Minh Securities.
Vietnam caps cross ownership at banks at five percent, but Vietnam Maritime Commercial Bank now owns 8.96 percent in MB and Vietcombank holds 7.16 percent, Thomson Reuters data showed.
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