Dragon Capital, a Ho Chi Minh City-based fund management company, has become a major shareholder in Vietnam’s three biggest securities firms.

According to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), Dragon Capital last week purchased nearly 113,000 shares of Saigon Securities (SSI), thereby increasing the total number of shares the fund holds at SSI to 25.05 million shares, equivalent to a 5 percent stake in SSI.

SSI has loosened its foreign cap to 100 percent and foreign ownership in this securities company currently reaches nearly 60 percent.

In the first nine months of 2018, SSI recorded consolidated revenue of more than 3 trillion VND (129 million USD), up 52 percent and equivalent to 89 percent of the annual plan, pre-tax profit touched 1.4 trillion VND (60.2 million USD), up by 38.4 percent and reaching 84 percent of the annual plan.

In addition to SSI, Dragon Capital is also a major shareholder of Viet Capital Securities Joint Stock Company (VCSC) with a nearly 8 percent stake in the company. 

The company is also the largest shareholder of Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation (HSC), holding 30.27 percent of HSC shares.

SSI, HSC and VCSC are the three securities companies with the largest market share in Vietnam. In the third quarter of 2018, SSI’s brokerage market share reached 15.8 percent, HSC reached 11.5 percent and VCSC reached 8.9 percent.-VNA