Singapore-based VIP Infrastructure Holdings Pte Ltd has completed the sale of 11.3 million shares of HCM Infrastructure Investment JSC (CII), reducing its ownership from 8.76 per cent to 4.17 per cent.

The Singaporean firm is no longer a major shareholder of CII, the Vietnamese company announced on Tuesday.

The transaction was conducted between September 25 and October 6.

At a price of some VND32,000 per share at the time, the divestment was valued at more than VND360 billion (US$16 million).

Compared with the peak of over VND40,000 per share in March, CII’s price has lost some 20 per cent of its value. However, the share has still gained 14.3 per cent since the beginning of this year.

VIP Infrastructure Holdings Pte Ltd is 100 per cent owned by Philippines’ Ayala Corporation, which invested in CII from 2012.

According to CII, due to changes in the accounting policy in the Philippines, Ayala wanted to divest partly from CII before October 31 to book this profit in its financial statement.

In a related development, Ireland’s DC Developing Market Strategies Public Co Ltd has registered to buy two million CII shares between October 3 and November 1.

CII reported revenue of some VND1 trillion in the first half of this year, about a two-fold increase over the same period of last year. Its net profit reached VND1.6 trillion, seven times more than the same period last year and exceeding the net profit target for the whole of 2017. — VNS