HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Companies plan to launch a number of initial public offerings (IPOs) at the end of February and in March, and trillions of dong will likely be needed to absorb them.

These companies are primarily from the construction and transportation sectors, such as the Ha Noi Construction Corporation (Hancorp), the Civil Engineering Construction Corporation No 1 (Cienco 1), the Transport Engineering Design Inc (Tedi), and the Viet Nam Water and Environment Investment Corporation (Viwaseen).

The Thang Long Construction Corporation and Song Da – Hoang Long Company are also planning to launch IPOs.

Most of these companies will offer shares at VND10,000 (US$0.47) each, while Hancorp with charter capital of VND1.9 trillion ($90.4 million) and Viwaseen with charter capital of VND800 billion ($38 million) will each offer shares at the price of VND10,200.

As an IPO pioneer this year, Viglacera Corporation, which had charter capital of more than VND3 trillion ($142.8 million), raised more than VND200 billion ($9.5 million) from its IPO on Thursday. The IPO attracted more than 600 organisations and individual investors.

A volume of 19.47 million shares were sold at VND10, 301 per share, constituting 25.3 per cent of Viglacera's offered share volume. Notably, foreign investors bought 52 per cent of the volume of shares sold.

The Bach Dang Construction Corporation held its IPO on Friday, which attracted 192 individual investors who bought more than 890,000 shares. The company offered more than 7 million shares at a price of VND10, 200 each.

The Government Decree 108, which took effect from mid-November last year, stipulated that within one year from the IPOs, the companies must be listed on exchanges.

As a result, the equity supply was forecast to increase this year, especially taking into consideration that the government will provide a boost to the privatisation of state-owned enterprises in the 2014-15 period. — VNS