Vietnamese budget airline Vietjet has set its initial public offering (IPO) of 44.78 million shares, equal to 14.9 per cent of the firm’s chartered capital of VND3 trillion (US$133.3 million), to raise US$170 million, Reuters reported on Thursday. — Photo vietnamfinance.vn

Vietnamese budget airline Vietjet has set its initial public offering (IPO) of 44.78 million shares, equal to 14.9 per cent of the firm’s chartered capital of VND3 trillion (US$133.3 million), to raise US$170 million, Reuters reported on Thursday.

The share price would be VND84,600 for institutional investors and VND86,500 for individual investors. The IPO would value the firm at $1.2 billion.

The number of shares bid by buyers have exceeded that of shares offered by Vietjet at the IPO, Reuters reported, however, the airline will not increase the number of shares sold at the IPO.

The IPO of Vietjet is co-ordinated by some domestic and international financial institutions such as BNP Paribas, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and VietCapital Securities.

Vietjet shares are expected to start trading at VND88,800 on their debut on the HCM Stock Exchange in February 2017.

Vietjet declined to comment on the deal.

The funding raised from the IPO is expected to help increase Vietjet’s equity and help the company to expand its operations in some domestic airports and expand its routes.

Vietjet is expected to increase the number of domestic routes from the current 36 to 45 by the end of 2019 and international routes from 19 to 36 by 2018.

In 2015, Vietjet received VND19.84 trillion in combined revenue and VND1.17 trillion in net profit, a year-on-year increase of 128 per cent and 225 per cent respectively from 2014.

In the first half of this year, the firm’s revenue rose 41 per cent to VND12.55 trillion and its net profit gained two-thirds to VND1.23 trillion.

At the end of September 2016, Vietjet recorded an increase of 40 per cent in revenue and 70 per cent in net profit on a 54 per cent growth of its flight numbers. — VNS