Thailand’s Nawaplastic Industries (Saraburi) Company Limited will offload its entire stake of 21.27 million shares in Tien Phong Plastic JSC (NTP).

The Thai company’s stake is equivalent to an ownership of 23.84 per cent of the Vietnamese firm’s charter capital.

In a filing to the State Securities Commission, the Thai company said the transaction will be carried out from September 25 to October 20 on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange through matching or the trading method.

The tender price has not been disclosed. However, with the price of some VND69,000 (US$3.04) per NTP share on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the deal value is expected to be around VND1.47 trillion (nearly $65 million), a three-fold increase over the initial cost.

Nawaplastic bought 9.82 million shares of Tien Phong Plastic in March 2012 for VND463 billion. A year later, the Thai company paid VND24 billion to own another 500,000 NTP shares.

During that time, it also bought seven million shares of Binh Minh Plastic JSC (BMP) for VND352 billion.

Tien Phong and Binh Minh are the two largest plastic companies in Viet Nam.

Nawaplastic had earlier expressed its interest to up its stake holding in both the Vietnamese plastic companies if the State Capital Investment Corporation undertakes divestment. Thus, Nawaplastic’s announcement of selling stake in Tien Phong Plastic came as a surprise, especially in the context that the Vietnamese company this year approved the policy of expanding foreign ownership.

Tien Phong Plastic is considered profitable for the Thai company, as its ownership has doubled from 10.32 million shares in 2013 to over 21 million shares in 2017, as well as VND173 billion in cash following several dividend payouts in the last five years.

Nawaplastic is a 99.79 per cent (indirect stake) subsidiary of the Siam Cement Public Company Limited (SCG) and operates under direction of SCG Chemicals Company Limited, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of SCC.

Until now, SCG has invested in 12 plastic companies in Viet Nam, including big names such as Tien Phong, Binh Minh and Tan Dai Hung. It has also carried out a number of large-scale merger and acquisitions in the fields of cement, enameled tile and packaging. – VNS