Vietcombank sold out all 6.67 million shares of Orient Commercial Bank (OCB) at an auction on Tuesday.

According to the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, 128 investors, including one institution, bought the shares. The highest winning price was VND28,500 (US$1.25) per share and the lowest was VND25,000, compared with the starting price of VND13,000 set by Vietcombank.

The OCB price in this auction doubled that in the first auction held at the end of last year. On December 29 last year, Vietcombank auctioned 18.9 million OCB shares at a starting price of VND13,000; however, merely 13.2 million stakes found buyers, at prices ranging from VND13,000 to VND14,500 ($0.59-0.65) per piece, leaving some 30 per cent of the stakes unsold. After last year’s auction, Vietcombank’s ownership rate at OCB fell from 4.72 per cent to 3.97 per cent.

On the OTC market, OCB shares are also trading at around VND25,000 to VND27,000 per share, compared with some VND10,000 at the end of last year.

With the success of the OCB share sale, Vietcombank currently holds 8.19 per cent stake in Eximbank and 6.97 per cent stake in Military Bank.

The northern bourse said OCB’s charter capital had reached VND5 trillion, with more than 122 branches and transaction offices nationwide.

Last year, the bank earned VND816 billion in after-tax profit, double the amount in 2016. Its total assets increased by 32 per cent to VND84.3 trillion. Meanwhile, lending surged by 25 per cent to reach more than VND48.1 trillion.

The bank this year has targeted to increase its total asset by 37 per cent to VND115.7 trillion, its charter capital to VND7.5 trillion from the current VND5 trillion and double its pre-tax profit to VND2 trillion. It also planned to list on the HCM Stock Exchange in the fourth quarter this year.

Offloading holdings at OCB is one of Vietcombank’s moves to comply with the central bank’s Circular 36, which allows commercial banks to hold shares in a maximum of two other credit institutions, with the stake in each not exceeding 5 per cent of the total equity of that institution. — VNS