Sai Gon Thuong Tin Comercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank), currently listed on the HCM City Stock Exchange as STB, is seeking shareholders’ approval to transfer its listing to the Ha Noi Stock Exchange under new code SCM.

Accordingly, Sacombank will cancel its registration of STB at the Viet Nam Securities Depository Centre (VSD), delist from the southern bourse, re-register SCM at VSD and finally list SCM on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange.

This may come as a surprise to investors because the code STB has been associated with Sacombank for the past 11 years.

Sacombank was the first bank to launch its IPO at the initial price of VND200,000 (US$8.8) per share in 1996 and also the first to list on the national bourse in July 2006.

In 2012, STB was included on the VN30, which consists of the largest stocks by market capitalisation.

However, in 2015-16, Sacombank struggled with a huge stockpile of bad debts.

It was only in May this year that approval was granted for the 10-year restructuring plan of Sacombank.

Duong Cong Minh, who became chairman of Sacombank on June 30, 2017, has been speeding up efforts to resolve bad debts.

In the first nine months of this year, Sacombank announced it handled bad debts worth VND2 trillion and posted pre-tax profit of VND900 billion, even higher than its targets for the full year. — VNS