Vietnam's MBBank to sell 7.5% stake to foreign investors this year: CEO
Monday, July 15, 2019, 14:38 GMT+7
HANOI, July 15 -- Vietnam’s Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank is seeking to sell a 7.5% stake to one or more foreign investors this year, its chief executive officer said on Monday.
The bank, better known as MBBank, will issue around 123 million new shares and use 38.9 million treasury shares for the stake sale, CEO Luu Trung Thai told Reuters on telephone.
MBBank shares are trading at 21,500 dong apiece, potentially putting the value of the deal at around 3.48 trillion dong ($150.13 million).
“We will sell the stake to one or more foreign investors, and they will not necessarily be our strategic investors,” Thai said.
The sale is part of the bank’s move to raise its operating capital and expand its operations over the next three years, including investing in digital banking services.
MBBank, which is among the largest listed banks in Vietnam with a market capitalisation of nearly $2 billion, may organise a roadshow for the stake sale later this year, Thai said.
The bank reported a pretax profit of 4.82 trillion dong ($207.94 million) in the first half of this year, up 26% from a year earlier, Thai said.
Vietnamese banks face substantial capital needs of as much as $20 billion in the run-up to the adoption of Basel II standards, scheduled for Jan. 1, 2020, said Fitch Ratings in a note on Monday. ($1 = 23,180 dong)
