Foreign investors eye bank shares
The funds managed by Alp Asia Finance have become a shareholder of Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) since May 7, holding a 10% stake of the bank. Whistler Investments Limited and Sather Gate Investments Limited both have 102.2 million ACB shares, each of which holds 51.1 million.
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The amount of shares was part of the total 164 million shares sold by Standard Chartered APR Ltd and Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd.
Besides the two funds belonging to Alp Asia Finance, three other funds also bought ACB shares, namely Estes Investments Limited (38.5 million shares), Boardwalk South Limited (154,100 shares) and Estes Investments Limited (12.7 million).
Prior to that, in March, Dragon Capital Markets Ltd divested all of its 7 million ACB shares (0.71%), while Dragon Financial Holdings Ltd bought a similar amount of shares, raising its total shares owned to 70 million (7.1%).
As for Techcombank, after breaking apart with HSBC, it found two investors, managed by Warburg Pincus, which committed to pour US$370 million, or VND8.4 trillion into the bank.
In December 2017, PYN Elite Fund spent US$40 million to acquire 4.999% of TP Bank shares.IFC of the World Bank has also become a shareholder of TP Bank with 4.9% of shares.
TP Bank’s chair Do Minh Phu said the bank plans to sell 15% of shares through the specific issuance of shares to some investors. Its charter capital is expected to increase to VND8.5 trillion, or US$372 million from the current VND5.84 trillion.
In late 2017, HDBank fixed the ‘room’ for foreign investors before it listed shares on the HCMC bourse (HOSE) in January 2018 and sold 21% of shares to foreign investors, earning US$300 million.
Chair of OCB Trinh Van Tuan said the bank is seeking foreign strategic shareholders before listing shares on HOSE. The foreign ownership ratio ceiling set by the bank is 23.6%, while the current ratio is 4.9%.
According to Bui Quang Tin, director of BizLight Business School, the State Bank has requested commercial banks to satisfy Basel II standards, while the amended law of the 2017 Law on Credit Institutions includes at least 17 new provisions in bank governance. With these big changes, foreign investors are now more interested in bank shares.
More and more banks plan to list shares. TP Bank has listed 555 million shares on HOSE, becoming the second bank listing shares so far this year.
Meanwhile, Techcombank will enter the bourse on June 4 and OCB plans to list shares in late Q3.
