Bank shares continue to lure foreign capital

After a correction period in April and May, the VN Index and other indicators have recovered. 

Bank shares saw prices fall significantly during the correction period, but have regained strength, creating favorable conditions for credit institutions to implement their plans on issuing additional shares to raise charter capital.

At TP Bank, which began listing in April, the room for foreign investors is full. TP Bank plans to issue 87.6 million shares, or 15 percent of charter capital. A group of Japanese investors have registered to buy another 17.4 million TP Bank shares. If they buy shares as planned, their ownership ratio in the bank will remain unchanged.

At Eximbank, Yutaka Moriwaki from Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, a member of the board of directors, said the bank does not have any plan to issue additional shares. 

Maintaining or increasing foreign ownership ratio is also what foreign investors in HDBank want. 

In the correction period, foreign investors bought more HDB shares than from other banks. The current foreign ownership ratio in HDBank is around 27 percent.

Le Thanh Trung, deputy CEO of HDBank, said the bank is implementing a plan on admitting PG Bank with the share conversion ratio of 1:0.62. The bank plans to lift the foreign ownership ratio limit.

Meanwhile, other banks are moving ahead with plans to select strategic shareholders.

SCB, with three banks merging in the 2015 bank restructuring period, has submitted to the State Bank of Vietnam a plan to sell 50 percent of shares to foreign partners. 

To date, foreign shareholders hold 29.7 percent of SCB’s charter capital, of which institutional shareholders hold 19.7 percent.

According to Vo Tan Hoang Van, CEO of SCB, the bank is still planning to sell shares to partners who have strong attachment to the bank. SCB is also planning to enter the bourse in 2019.

“For investors which are financial institutions, once they are strategic investors, buying more shares to increase the ownership ratios will be the priority for them,” a banking expert said. 

“The market will still see foreign investors pouring money into bank shares,” he said.

The investors who want bank shares will have more choices as four to nine banks plan to list shares in 2018. 

The banks include HDB, Tien Phong Bank, Techcombank, Orient Bank, Maritime Bank, An Binh Bank, Saigon Bank, SeAbank, Nam A Bank and Viet A Bank. Techcombank and Orient Bank will list shares in the third quarter.

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Mai Thanh