Vietcombank Plans to List Overseas
The Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), the biggest state-owned bank that launched IPO December last year, will discuss the overseas listing plan in its first shareholders' meeting held April 26 in Hanoi, the Vietnam Economic Times Online reported.
The bank's stockholders will also pass the plan to float shares on the domestic stock exchange within this year to help raise the transparency and efficiency of the bank after privatization.
However, financial analysts said Vietcombank will be not able to list on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange in June as planned before due to the slump of the stock market and its market price on OTC market is now at half of the IPO price.
Vietcombank also said it has been greatly affected by the chaos on the world market and the slower growth of Vietnam financial market with the tightened monetary policy of the central bank.
So far, almost bank share prices dropped sharply and lost their liquidity due to the less interest from investors. The prices of ACB and STB, the two bank shares on the official market, have lost 38 per cent-42 per cent of value since the beginning of the year.
In the first quarter of 2008, Vietcombank reported to earn VND1.2 trillion (US$75 million) in pretax profits, fulfilling 40 per cent of the yearly target.
(Capital's Security, Vneconomy)
Vietnamese
