Selling shares to foreign investors, VCB’s charter capital up

Hanoi (VNA) – The charter capital of the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) has risen by 3 percent to 37.1 trillion VND (1.6 billion USD) after its recent sale of more shares to two strategic investors - the Singaporean investment fund GIC Private Limited (GIC) and Japan’s Mizuho Bank.

Mizuho Bank had completed the purchase of more than 16.6 million shares to increase its holding to 15 percent.

Meanwhile, GIC owned 2.55 percent of Vietcombank’s shares after buying over 94.4 million shares.

The bank completed the first share sale to foreign investors after receiving approval from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) on December 27, 2018.

Despite the central bank’s tightened monetary policy, Vietcombank reported good business performance last year thanks to improved bad debt resolution and rising income from services.

Vietcombank Chairman Nghiem Xuan Thanh said his bank’s 2018 pre-tax profit hit a record high of 18 trillion VND (773 million USD), surging a whopping 63 percent against 2017 despite the central bank’s credit slowdown.

Vietcombank’s outstanding loans last year fell 14.9 percent to more than 635 trillion VND, lower than the 17.2 percent rate of 2017.

The impressive result was attributed to the bank’s success in controlling credit quality and boosting service segments. Vietcombank’s non-performing loans (NPLs) accounted for only 0.97 percent of outstanding loans by the end of 2018 – the lowest level among the local banks – while its retail credit proportion rose from 39.6 percent in 2017 to 46.2 percent in 2018.

With the impressive results in 2018, the bank has set a profit target of 20 trillion VND for 2019. It will continue efforts to remain as the leading bank in Vietnam as well as one of the top 100 banks in the region and top 300 in the world.-VNA