BNP Baribas to raise stake to 20 pct in Vietnam bank OCB

[kieudiemvje]

Vietnam's partly private lender OCB said on Monday it has secured central bank permission to sell another 5 percent of stake to BNP Paribas, raising the French lender's interest to the 20-percent ceiling of foreign ownership.


The sale would help enable Ho Chi Minh City-based unlisted OCB to increase its registered capital by nearly 25 percent to more than 3.4 trillion dong this year, OCB said in a statement, citing a central bank document following a government approval.
It gave no planned dates for the sale. BNP Paribas now owns 15 percent of the Vietnamese bank, also known as Phuong Dong Commercial Bank, a small lender in term of assets among Vietnam's 39 partly private banks.
The stake sale would let the French lender join the list of foreign banks with the maximum stake in a Vietnamese bank, which now has HSBC Holdings Plc, Maybank and Societe Generale in it.
Vietnam caps foreign ownership in a domestic bank at 30 percent, with a 15 percent limit for a strategic investor. A foreign strategic investor could own 20 percent subject to government approval.
OCB's total assets at the end of May rose 13.7 percent from last December to 22.38 trillion dong ($1.1 billion). ($1=20,570 dong).

[kieudiemvje]

Benchmarks on both national bourses pared earlier losses to close in green Monday morning. On the HCM Stock Exchange, the VN-Index jumped 0.03 per cent to 425.42 points in the last minutes of the session, although losers outnumbered gainers by 115-83.


The value of trades marched slightly higher to VND419.1 billion (US$20.3 million), while trading volume remained similar to last Friday's figure at 23.9 million shares.
Of the 10 largest capitalised shares, only Eximbank (EIB) and Sacombank (STB) advanced 0.7 and 3.2 per cent respectively while food producer Masan Group (MSN) and estate developer Vincom (VIC) closed unchanged and six others plunged.
STB was the most active code with 3.15 million of its shares exchanged.
The HNX-Index, on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, added 0.34 per cent to 73.01 points despite an earlier slump.
Although more than a third of all listed codes were green back, both market value and volume dropped by around 35 per cent to VND214.1 billion ($10.4 million) on 19 million shares.
Kim Long Securities Company (KLS) was the most heavily traded stock, seeing 2.87 million of its shares changing hands.