A foreign fund spends more than US$134 million on purchasing Sabeco shares

According to the information from Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD), seven foreign investment funds managed by Dragon Capital bought 15.3 million Sabeco shares from Nogard Pte.

With the closed-down price at VND214,000 (US$9.37), this amount of Sabeco shares is estimated roughly VND3,274 billion (US$143.4 million). However, transactions made through VSD are usually an offband so the actual value will change.

These funds bought SAB shares at around VND200,000 (US$8.76), 6.5 per cent less than market value, which meant that the total amount spent was VND3.06 trillion (roughly US$134 million) of which the VEIL bought more than a haft.

At the end of December last year, 53.59 per cent of Sabeco shares was sold to Vietnam Beverage of which 49 per cent was owned by Thailand’s ThaiBev brewery at US$4.9 billion through auctions on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE).

In order to buy these shares, Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi billionaire's company borrowed US$5.23 billion from banks to pay for this transaction. In return, all Sabeco shares purchased by Vietnam Beverage will be used as collateral for bank loans of Thailand’s company.

Specifically, ThaiBev borrowed five local banks including Bangkok Bank, Bank of Ayudhya, Kasikornbank, Krung Thai Bank and The Siam Commercial Bank. The amount of loan from each bank is THB20 billion, equivalent to US$656 million.

Besides, BeerCo, a brewery company in Hong Kong of which 100 percent is owned by Thai brewery, borrowed US$1.95 billion from two foreign banks namely Mizuho Bank and Singapore branch of Standard Chartered.

After this deal, the State still holds 36 per cent of shares in Sabeco and Vietnam Beverage Company holds 53.59 per cent, Heineken holds about 5 per cent and other foreign investors hold nearly 5 per cent. There is only a small percentage of Sabeco's shares held by local investors.

Last year, Sabeco’s turnover was more than VND34 trillion (roughly US$1.5 billion), up 13 per cent compared to the amount of 2016. Its profit after tax also increased by 10.8 per cent and achieved VND5,137 billion (US$224.7 million).

After taking over Sabeco, the Thai brewery aims to increase its market share from 40 per cent to 50 per cent through Thailand group's retail network.