The HCM Development Bank will list over 981 million shares on the HCM City Stock Exchange on January 5, 2018, making it one of the 20 biggest companies by market cap on the southern bourse. — Photo courtesy of HDBank
The shares of HDBank will list on the HCM City Stock Exchange (HoSE) on Friday, January 5, making it the first bank to go public in 2018.
The HCM City Development Bank, as it is formally known, has received approval from the southern bourse to list over 981 million shares under the HDB symbol at a reference price of VND33,000 (US$1.45).
This is considered quite high compared to the prices of other bank shares listed on stock markets, and is behind only Vietcombank, VPBank and ACB.
The listing, which is advised by Saigon Securities Incorporation (SSI), will value the lender at around VND32.4 trillion ($1.43 billion), making it one of the 20 biggest companies by market capitalisation on HoSE.
With an allowed trading band of 20 per cent on each side of the reference price on opening day, HDB can potentially soar to VND39,600 on listing.
HDB is currently one of the most favoured stocks in the over-the-counter (OTC) market, with its price rising consistently to occasionally reach VND31,000.
Since December 14 it has ceased to trade on the OTC to prepare for the listing.
Last week (December 22) HDBank raised $300 million in an initial public offering (IPO) after selling around 21.5 per cent of its shares at VND32,000 based on book building.
The IPO got an overwhelming response from 76 foreign investors, who had registered to buy three times the number of shares on offer.
Among them were Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG, Japan’s Credit Saison Co, VinaCapital and JP Morgan Vietnam Opportunities Fund, who each own not more than 3 per cent.
Earlier the lender had issued around 98 million shares to existing shareholders, raising VND3.2 trillion.
Self-made billionaire, founder and chairwoman of private budget airline Vietjet Air, and deputy chairwoman of the bank, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, bought more than 17.6 million shares then.
More than 38.5 million shares were sold to Sovico Holdings, which owns both the bank and the airline.
After the issuance, the bank’s charter capital rose to VND9.8 trillion.
It also seeks to issue 20 million shares to its employees some time in the first quarter of 2018 at par to increase its capital to VND10 trillion.
HDBank merged with Dai A Bank in 2013 and acquired France’s Société Générale Viet Finance the same year. The latter deal helped the bank tie up with a Japanese partner to create a finance company called HD Saison that currently has more than 6,000 counters nation-wide.
HDBank expects to increase pre-tax profit by nearly 110 per cent this year to VND2.4 trillion. — VNS