F&N and Platinum Victory failed again to attain 1 per cent Vinamilk stakes

In its filing sent to the State Securities Commission and the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HSX) dated July 5, Singapore-based F&N, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fraser & Neave that backed by Thai tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, noted that the company has failed in its attempt to purchase the additional shares in Vietnam Dairy Products JSC (Vinamilk) in June. 

F&N has been continuously registered to buy over 17.4 million Vinamilk shares via put-through and order matching transactions over the past months but has not been successful.

Singapore-based Platinum Victory, the subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Jardine Matheson, likewise, has not been able to buy the same amount of shares to raise its ownership at Vinamilk to 11.62 per cent as desired.

Both companies have now re-registered to race for the same volume of shares for the period starting July 4 to August 8.

The State Capital Investment Corporation currently holds 36 per cent of Vinamilk, while F&N owns 17.31 per cent, Platinum Victory 10.62 per cent and F&N Beverage Manufacturing Pte., Ltd. (a subsidiary of F&N) 2.7 per cent. Total foreign ownership at the dairy giant is at 59.06 per cent. A Vinamilk share is traded at VND124,800 ($5.43) apiece on July 8.

In the first three months of the year, Vinamilk reported a net sales of VND13.189 trillion ($573.4 million), a 9 per-cent increase on-year and a post-tax profit of VND2.79 trillion ($121.3 million), up of over 4 per cent on-year.

Vinamilk set its revenue target at VND56.3 trillion ($2.45 billion) in 2019, an up of 7 per cent on-year. The post-tax profit is anticipated to reach VND10.48 trillion ($455.65 million), a rise of 2.5 per cent on-year.