The positive pieces of news before the listing was not a firm support for VPBank to surpass Vietcombank (VCB), who has the most expensive share, on the stock market.
The stock price of Vietnam Prosperity Joint-Stock Commercial Bank (VPB) in the morning of the first trading day on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HSX) has not varied as expected, despite a series of good news before the listing and a favorable start in the first minutes of trading.
VPB had a record trading value at the ATO with a total of 46 million shares matched at the reference price of VND39,000 (roughly US$1.737), worth nearly VND1,800 billion (roughly US$80.2 million). Moreover, foreign investors once again bought a massive amount of VPB’s shares, with the figure being 37.3 million shares which are worth VND1,400 billion (roughly US$62.4 million) in the first session.
However, its VND4,100 billion profit (roughly US$182.7 million) in the first 7 months of the year, its ambition to be ranked at the top as well as the support from foreign investors did not help VPB maintain its reference price.
After the ATO, the number of shares sold increased dramatically. However, VPB held the better within just a few minutes until 11:00, the matched price reduced to VND36,500 (roughly US$1.63) with nearly 48.6 million shares sold. Sometimes, matched price was just VND33,000 (roughly US$1.47) while VCB has remained at VND37,300 – 37,550 (roughly US$1.66 – 1.67) per share.
Despite the unexpected listing day, VPBank can still become Vietnam’s biggest private bank, beating the Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB), Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank) and Vietnam Export Import Commercial Joint - Stock Bank (Eximbank). VPBank’s capitalized value is just behind Vietcombank, Vietinbank, and BIDV.
Until Q2/2017, VPBank’s total assets and equity were more than VND248,000 billion (roughly US$1.105 billion) and VND19,500 billion (roughly US$ 868,829), respectively. It has the highest profitability index in the banking system, with its Return on equity (ROE) in 2016 and first 7 months of 2017 being around 27 – 28%, 4 fold higher than that of three biggest banks namely Vietcombank, BIDV, and Vietinbank.
