VietNamNet Bridge - The national television VTV is looking for strategic partners for VTVcab, one of its subsidiaries now undergoing equitization.


A VTV senior official has confirmed that VTV will sell 49 percent of stake in VTVcab and plans to finish the equitization in 2016. An equitization steering committee has been set up by Nguyen Thanh Luong, VTV’s deputy general director.

Regarding the requirements for strategic partners, the official said VTV wants not only powerful financial capability, but also good corporate governance and technical capability.

“We are very open. Anyone who can satisfy the requirements, from telecom groups to foreign firms, could be the strategic partners,” he said.

The official said a lot of candidates have expressed their willingness to become strategic shareholders of VTVcab, including foreign groups, but the declined to reveal their names.

The government has agreed on VTV’s proposal to hold 51 percent of VTVcab’s stake after the equitization. 

The national television VTV is looking for strategic partners for VTVcab, one of its subsidiaries now undergoing equitization.

Tran Binh Minh, general director of VTV, sat at a ceremony on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of VTV establishment in September 2015 that VTV will disinvest from VTVcab first, and then from SCTV and K+.

The disinvestment from pay-TVs, according to Minh, aims to help the businesses operate more effectively, thus allowing them to bring bigger benefits to shareholders and subscribers.

After withdrawing capital from the televisions, VTV will only be in charge of controlling the content, while it will not get involved in the television business.

For many years, VTV has been dominating the pay-TV market. It has capital in three biggest companies which control the market.

A report of the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) showed that by the end of 2015, Vietnam had 9.9 million pay-TV subscribers. Meanwhile, three enterprises to which VTV contributes capital have 6 million subscribers. These include 2.5 million subscribers of SCTV, 2.5 million of VTVcab and 900,000 of K+.

VTV plans to sell shares at auctions, while the money to be collected from the share sale will be transferred to the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC). This is the state-owned powerful corporation specializing in investing state’s money in businesses.

An analyst commented that telecom groups are the most suitable candidates for VTVcab, because they can meet the requirements set by VTV “powerful in financial capability, good at corporate governance and experienced in the field’” as stated by VTV’s general director Tran Binh Minh.

VTVcab is very attractive in the eyes of investors because the pay-TV market, though having become fiercely competitive, remains profitable with the annual growth rate of 130-140 percent on average. The investments in the TV field can bring profit of 30-40 percent.

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