The Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) will sell 31 million treasury shares for current employees in 2019, worth a total VND310 billion (US$13.37 million).

The shares will be taken from VPBank’s total 123 million treasury shares under the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP).

Thirty per cent of the shares will be restricted from trading for one year, the bank said in a statement on Monday.

Thirty-five per cent of the shares will be available for trading after two years and shareholders will be able to trade the remainder after three years.

The rest of the issuance would be sold at a price level lower than VND10,000 per share or removed.

Fifty million treasury shares of the total were bought back between October 2 and 23 for an average VND22,194 per share.

In 2018, the bank issued 33.7 million ESOP shares with its CEO signing up to buy 15.55 million shares.

In the first nine months, VPBank recorded VND7.2 trillion in pre-tax profit, fulfilling 76 per cent of the full-year target.

VPBank is listing nearly 1.86 billion shares on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange with code VPB.

The number of total outstanding shares is 2.4 billion shares.

Its shares dropped 1.1 per cent to close Tuesday at VND21,650 each. — VNS