Bao Minh Insurance to scrap its foreign ownership limit

Bao Minh Insurance shareholders have approved a proposal to raise its foreign ownership ratio to 100 per cent from the current 49 per cent and set the targeted revenue for this year at $199 million.

The approval was made at the recent annual general shareholders meeting of Vietnam’s third largest non-life insurer.

Company chairman Le Song Lai noted that following the meeting, the board of directors will immediately work with relevant authorities on the process to open up the ownership to foreign investors and these procedures are expected to complete in the third quarter of 2019.

There have already been a certain number of investors showing interest in acquiring shares of Bao Minh Insurance, Lai revealed. Once the negotiation is over, the company will officially publish such list of investors to shareholders.

Bao Minh currently has three foreign shareholders accounting for 28.06 per cent of its equity.

In addition, the 2019 business plan of 2019 approved at the meeting seeks to increase the company's revenue by at least 7 per cent, to consequently reach $199 million in total by the end of the year.

The company, in particular, expects to gain some $167 million from direct insurance line and nearly $22 million from reinsurance business, an increase of 8 per cent and 4 per cent on-year, respectively. 

In addition, targeted revenue from financial activities is expected to add up to $10 million for the year.

The company also set a target of $9.5 million in pre-tax profit this year, up 9 per cent and a post-tax profit of $8 million, equivalent to a 4 per cent increase on-year. Return on equity is forecast to go up by 8 per cent on average.

These targets are said to be rather challenging for Bao Minh given the the fierce competition in non-life insurance market at present.

However, CEO Le Van Thanh affirms that the company is making every effort to realise these goals through improving business efficiency and enhancing shareholders’s benefits.