Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) plans to issue nearly 33.7 million shares for its employees in the form of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) at the price of VND10,000 per share.

VPBank said in its statement that the bonus shares will be unavailable for trading for three years from the issuance date.

VPBank has not decided on its issuance date but the bank expects to gain the approval of the State Securities Commission to issue the bonus shares in 2018.

After the issuance, if its employees cannot absorb all the bonus shares, VPBank will sell the remainder at a rate above VND10,000 (US$0.44) per share or terminate the remaining amount of shares and only record the number of shares sold to employees.

VPBank is trading a total of 2.42 billion shares on the equity market, equal to VND24.2 trillion in charter capital. The figure includes 1.82 billion shares being listed on the HCM Stock Exchange with code VPB and 73.2 million treasury shares.

The coming ESOP share issuance is expected to raise the bank’s charter capital by VND337 billion to VND24.56 trillion.

In the first six months of the year, VPBank recorded VND293 trillion worth of total assets, an increase of 6 per cent from the beginning of the year.

Its net revenue rose 28 per cent year on year to VND14.5 trillion in the first half of the year, accounting for 43 per cent of its full-year target.

The bank estimates its combined pre-tax profit in the first six months may be up 34 per cent year on year to VND4.37 trillion, equal to 40 per cent of its full-year target.

VPBank shares ended Monday at VND27,150 per share, up 1.3 per cent from last week’s end level. — VNS