HAGL Joint Stock Company (HOSE: HAG), Vietnam’s second-biggest listed property developer, became the first company from the country to list global depository receipts with a $56.5 million sale on the London Stock Exchange on March 24.


Proceeds from the issue will be used by the company, also known as Hoang Anh Gia Lai Joint-Stock Company, in financing some of its rubber plantation and hydropower projects, it said in a regulatory announcement.
The placement would help lure the “attention of foreign investors by sending them a message saying that Vietnam also has good companies,” Doan Nguyen Duc, the company’s chairman said in a telephone interview from Laos.
The GDRs will trade on the London Stock Exchange’s Professional Securities Market, according to the announcement. Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas was appointed depositary for the listing.
Global depository receipts are negotiable certificates held in the bank of one country representing a specific number of shares of a stock traded on an exchange of another country.