Viet Nam Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VietBank) targets to list its shares on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) within a year of increasing charter capital to more than VND4.25 trillion (US$181 million) in 2018.

According to a resolution released recently, VietBank will issue shares for its existing shareholders and employees to raise its capital by more than VND1 trillion.

Nearly 91 million shares for existing shareholders and more than 9.7 million ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) shares will be offered at the price of VND10,000 a piece, based on the bank’s book value of VND10,247 per share by December 31, 2017. Existing shareholders and the bank’s employees will be allowed to buy the shares at the ratio of 100:28.

Existing shareholders can transfer the right to purchase the shares, which will not be subject to restrictions on the time of transfer. The ESOP shares will not be permitted to be transferred within three years of the offering.

According to VietBank, all proceeds from the offering will be used for asset investment to expand its operation network.

Under the resolution, VietBank’s board of directors also announced the bank’s shares have been registered for securities depository at Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD) with share code VBB.

In addition, the bank has submitted an application for the Ha Noi Stock Exchange to trade on UPCoM and is completing procedures to put VBB shares into trading within a year after the completion of the offering.

In 2018, VietBank plans to achieve pre-tax profit of VND300 billion after gaining VND263 billion last year. The bank is also set to increase its total assets by 30 per cent in 2018. — VNS