Monday, September 11, 2006
Other news on Vietnam banking
HANOI, Aug 10 (Reuters) - The state-run Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) said on Wednesday it will issue convertible bonds to raise 1.2 trillion dong ($75.8 million) next month as part of its planned partial privatisation.
"The issue is targeted to take place in late September before we carry out the IPO," Vietcombank's Chief Executive Officer Vu Viet Ngoan told Reuters.
The bond, aimed at increasing Vietcombank's registered capital to 4.5 trillion dong ($284 million), would be sold only to domestic investors, he said.
Vietcombank is the first state-run bank to win government approval to sell a minority stake in a partial privatisation plan which will serve as a model for reform of the banking sector.
Ngoan said the coupon on the bond would either be fixed or decided through auctions.
Vietcombank's plan to become a shareholding firm which might be listed eventually has long been watched by both foreign and domestic investors.
Vietcombank is one of Vietnam's five state-run commercial banks which together control 80 percent of the market's lending. The country also has more than 30 semi-private banks, but none is listed.
Ngoan said Vietcombank had been given approval to hire a foreign consultant to evaluate the bank, a process bank executives and central bank governor Le Duc Thuy said would take six months.
Vietcombank said on Monday it made a gross profit of 1.3 trillion dong in the first half of this year, a rise of 41 percent from a year earlier.
The Hanoi-based bank had bad debts of 10 percent of lending if measured by international accounting standards but 3 percent under domestic rules
"The issue is targeted to take place in late September before we carry out the IPO," Vietcombank's Chief Executive Officer Vu Viet Ngoan told Reuters.
The bond, aimed at increasing Vietcombank's registered capital to 4.5 trillion dong ($284 million), would be sold only to domestic investors, he said.
Vietcombank is the first state-run bank to win government approval to sell a minority stake in a partial privatisation plan which will serve as a model for reform of the banking sector.
Ngoan said the coupon on the bond would either be fixed or decided through auctions.
Vietcombank's plan to become a shareholding firm which might be listed eventually has long been watched by both foreign and domestic investors.
Vietcombank is one of Vietnam's five state-run commercial banks which together control 80 percent of the market's lending. The country also has more than 30 semi-private banks, but none is listed.
Ngoan said Vietcombank had been given approval to hire a foreign consultant to evaluate the bank, a process bank executives and central bank governor Le Duc Thuy said would take six months.
Vietcombank said on Monday it made a gross profit of 1.3 trillion dong in the first half of this year, a rise of 41 percent from a year earlier.
The Hanoi-based bank had bad debts of 10 percent of lending if measured by international accounting standards but 3 percent under domestic rules
