BNP Baribas to raise OCB stake to 20 %

OCB has secured central bank permission to sell another 5 percent of stake to BNP Paribas.

This will allow the latter to raise its interest to the 20-percent ceiling of foreign ownership.

The sale would help enable Ho Chi Minh City-based unlisted OCB to increase its registered capital by nearly 25 percent to more than 3.4 trillion dong this year, OCB said in a statement, citing a central bank document following a government approval.

BNP Paribas now owns 15 percent of the Vietnamese bank, also known as Phuong Dong Commercial Bank, a small lender in term of assets among Vietnam's 39 partly private banks.

The stake sale would let the French lender join the list of foreign banks with the maximum stake in a Vietnamese bank, which now has HSBC Holdings Plc , Maybank and Societe Generale in it.