Vietnamese banks seeking foreign partners

After wrapping up the deal on selling 10 percent of stakes to the International Financial Corporation IFC, Vietinbank continues to issue more shares to the Bank of Novascotia.

BNS  has to pay 3570 billion dong for 357 million shares, which means the sale price is equal to the face value, at 10,000 dong per share.

Credit Suisse has been chosen by Vietcombank as its consultant in the deal of selling 20 percent of Vietcombank’s stakes to foreign investors.

A lot of other banks are also planning to continue selling stakes to foreign investors until the foreign ownership hits the ceiling level of 20 percent.

PNB will raise its chartered capital from 3049 billion dong to 3212 billion dong from selling shares to United Overseas Bank. The foreign partner has decided to purchase 16.35 million shares of PNB, accounting for 5 percent, to raise its ownership ratio in the domestic bank to 20 percent.

VIB has also got the permission to raise its chartered capital from 4 trillion dong to 4250 billion dong by selling shares to Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The foreign bank will buy 25 million shares more to raise its total ownership ratio to 20 percent or 85 million shares.

Similarly, OCB on July 11 sold 29 million shares to BNP Paribas, which has raised the foreign bank’s ownership ratio in OCB from 15 percent to 20 percent.

Trinh Van Tuan, General Director of Phuong Dong Bank, said in fact, the plan on selling five percent of stakes to BNP Paribas was set up nearly one year ago. However, the deal has just wrapped up because it was necessary to follow many procedures.

Le Dat Chi from the HCM City Economics University, said that the banks which have three trillion dong in chartered capital are also trying to sell shares to foreign investors now, because they want to improve the financial capability. In the future, banks need to become stronger with big chartered capital to survive in a stiffly competitive environment.

OCB’s General Director said that in long term, Vietnam’s financial market is really potential. However, in short term, one cannot say that foreign investors would rush to inject money in the banking sector.