Vietnam Italy Steel JSC (code: VIS) wants to keep selling shares to Kyoei Steel despite its poor business performance after being acquired by a Japanese company.
Vietnam Italy Steel JSC’s board of directors has just submitted a document to its shareholders’ meeting on allowing Kyoei Steel, and relative members, to keep buying more than 10 per cent of its shares without submitting a public bid. After receiving VIS stocks from Thai Hung, Kyoei Steel has kept increasing its ownership in VIS. Currently, the Japanese firm is VIS’s parent company with the ownership rate of 73.81 per cent, equalling 54.5 million stocks.
However, after falling into Kyoei Steel’s hands, VIS’ business has experienced a downturn. VIS’ financial statement for the fourth quarter of 2018 showed that the company suffered a loss of VND195.6 billion ($8.5 million), bringing its accumulated loss for the whole year to VND326 billion ($14.2 million). This is the third consecutive quarter that the company saw negative business results.
In 2018, VIS reported a net revenue of VND5.22 trillion ($226.95 million), down 14 per cent on-year and reaching only 74 per cent of its annual target. The value of unsold steel in 2018 was VND943 billion ($41 million), doubling against the beginning of the year. VIS stocks were also put on alert.
In addition, VIS forecasts negative business performance in 2019, anticipating a loss of VND92.54 billion ($4 million).