Vietinbank has not completed acquiring PGBank as the two sides have not finished all required procedures and got approval from the authorities.

At Việt Nam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade’s (Vietinbank) annual shareholder meeting on Monday, chairman Nguyen Van Thang said all documents related to the merger of the two banks were submitted to the State Bank of Viet Nam in 2016.

After reviewing the papers, the central bank asked Vietinbank to review and update the result of assessment on PGBank’s share price and re-calculate and discuss the convert ratio between the two banks’ shares, he said.

Vietinbank has hired audit firm Deloitte Viet Nam to re-assess the price of PGBank shares and re-calculate the ratio to convert PGBank shares into Vietinbank shares, Thang said, adding that the two banks are in talks to finalise and submit the results to the central bank.

Under the previous agreement that was approved by shareholders of the two banks in 2015, the ratio to convert PGBank’s shares into Vietinbank’s was 1:0.9, or each PGBank share was equal to 0.9 Vietinbank share.

Based on that ratio, Vietinbank will issue an additional 270 million shares in exchange for 300 million PGBank shares. Another 30 million shares will be issued for Vietinbank’s current shareholders.

In 2017, Vietinbank expects to increase its total assets by 14 per cent year-on-year to more than VND1 quadrillion (US$44.4 billion) from 2016, raise its pre-tax profit by 3 per cent to VND8.8 trillion and pay a 5-7 per cent dividend.

Vietinbank general director Le Duc Tho said the bank will improve its super-micro customer and small- and medium-sized enterprise segments in 2017.

According to its report for 2016, Vietinbank recorded charter capital of VND37.23 trillion and ownership equity of VND60.4 trillion.

Those numbers were 24 per cent and 6 per cent lower, respectively, than the targeted figures for 2016 as the bank had to use its 2016 profits to make dividend payments instead of increasing its capital as planned.

Vietinbank, in 2016, saw its total assets rise 22 per cent year-on-year to VND949 trillion. Its lending increased by 18 per cent to VND722 trillion and its bad debt was 0.9 per cent. — VNS