The Bank for Foreign Trade of Viet Nam (Vietcombank) on Monday was estimated to receive VND342.6 billion (US$15.2 million) from selling its entire stakes in the Saigon Bank for Industry and Trade (SaigonBank) and Viet Nam Cement Finance Company (CFC).

Vietcombank offered 13.25 million shares of SaigonBank (4.3 per cent of the bank’s capital) and 6.6 million shares of CFC (10.91 per cent of the finance company’s capital) for auction, according to the Ha Noi Stock Exchange.

The northern exchange regulator announced that 20 investors had registered to purchase SaigonBank shares with total registered volume of nearly 53.82 million shares but only two of them could afford the shares.

The two investors, including one individual and one institutional investor, bought SaigonBank shares at the highest bidding price of VND20,100 per share, 1.6 times the initial asking price of VND12,550 per share set by Vietcombank.

Vietcombank was estimated to earn VND266.36 billion from the sale of SaigonBank shares, bringing a profit of VND143 billion to Viet Nam’s largest bank by market capitalisation.

The sale of CFC shares also helped Vietcombank receive VND76.25 billion. The initial asking price for CFC shares was VND11,549 per share.

Nine individual investors signed up for the auction of CFC shares with registered buying volume of 6.67 million shares.

The shares were sold to all nine investors for an average VND11,554 per share. The deal was reported to generate VND5.3 billion in profit for Vietcombank.

After divesting from SaigonBank and CFC, Vietcombank plans to sell its ownership in three other financial-banking businesses, the Orient Joint Stock Commercial Bank (OCB), the Viet Nam Export-Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Eximbank) and the Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MBBank).

Vietcombank aims to complete selling its stake in OCB by the end of this year while the other two deals are set to be finished in January 2018 and expected to help Vietcombank earn VND1 trillion in profit. – VNS