.jpg "Photo: Tuoi Tre")
Vietinbank would sell a 10-percent stake to International Finance Corp (IFC) in October for US$190 million, Vietinbank chairman Pham Huy Hung said last week.
The price was set by the Government, the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank of Vietnam.
When the deal is finalized, Vietinbank will be the first partly-equitized State-owned bank to have obtained a foreign strategic investor within 20 months of its initial public offering (IPO).
Vietcombank was the first State-owned bank to go public in December 2007, but it has been struggling since to land a foreign strategic investor.
IFC, a financial arm of the World Bank, also agreed to lend $120 million o Vietinbank over 10 years at six-month LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) plus a fixed margin of 1.5 percent.
Vietinbank also expects to sell another 10-20 percent to Canada's Nova Scotia Bank which will meet with Government representatives next month with the aim to finalize the Vietinbank deal in December.
Vietinbank is also planning to issue 392 million additional shares next month, of which 315.1 million will be offered to existing shareholders and the remaining 76.9 million issued to them as a dividend. The deadline for shareholders to register for participation is September 8.
Shares of Vietinbank (coded CTG on the HCM Stock Exchange) closed up 3.3 percent on Monday to VND22,200 per share.
In the first six months of the year, the Hanoi-based bank reported earnings of VND5.3 trillion ($273 million), of which revenues from business activities accounted for VND659 billion, forex services VND24.16 billion ($1.23 million), and other sources of revenue VND168.7 billion ($8.65 million).
After deducting VND813 billion ($41.69 million) risk provision, the bank posted a net profit in the first half of VND1.6 trillion ($83 million).
Vietinbank expects to increase its charter capital to VND23 trillion ($1.18 billion) by the end of the year, and the figure is slated to reach VND35 trillion ($1.8 billion) next year.
.jpg "Photo: Tuoi Tre")