On December 21, Ho Chi Minh Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank (HDBank) granted certificates of ownership to more than 76 foreign investors buying its shares before the listing.
The foreign investors include some of the familiar ones in Vietnam's stock market such as VinaCapital, Dragon Capital, Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Vietnam Opportunities Fund and some financial institutions like CAM Bank (Japan), RWC Frontier Markets Opportunity Master Fund (England), Macquarie Bank (Australia) and Charlemagne (England).
HDBank's partner in the consumer finance division, Credit Saison (Japan), also bought its shares.
In total, investors spent US$300 million on a 21.5 per cent stake in HDBank, with one investor holding up to three per cent.
"We decided to invest in HDBank after three years of strategic cooperation in the consumer finance division," said Akihiro Matsuda, a member of Credit Saison’s Board of Directors. “We are impressed with the growth rate, the size of its total assets, its network and also the impressive profit of HDBank, a “rising star”. We also appreciate the clear plan of the bank’s leaders who have shown us its potential in the next five years."
"76 investors who are reputable financial institutions buying HDBank shares shows the interest of financial investors in HDBank. This successful issuance before the listing, will help HDBank increase its financial capacity, which will be an important premise for HDBank to achieve the breakthrough growth in the coming years," said Le Thanh Trung, Deputy General Director of HDBank.
The share offering from existing shareholders was successfully carried out using the book-building method at the selling price of VND32,000 (roughly US$1.41) per share with the consultancy of two leading securities companies including Saigon Securities Incorporation (SSI) and Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation (HSC).
Earlier, HDBank also successfully issued more than 98 million shares to existing large investors, gaining nearly VND3,200 billion (roughly US$141.12 million).
The private offering of existing shareholders’ shares at the relatively popular price on the market will facilitate foreign investors in quickly trading shares. Major domestic shareholders buying shares in the private offering will not be allowed to transfer their share within a year.
After the issuance, HDBank's charter capital was VND9,800 billion (roughly US$432.19 million), with VND2,100 billion (roughly US$92.61 million) in capital surplus.
After the merger of DaiABank in 2013 and the acquisition of French financial company Société Générale, HDBank’s equity was VND14,180 billion (roughly US$625.36 million); its total assets were VND174.594 trillion (roughly US$7.7 billion) and individual bad debt ratio was below 1.2 per cent. Also, the combined ratio of consumer finance division was less than 1.6 per cent, always low in the industry for many years.
