Small banks race to list on stock market

VNStockNews.com - Not only large scaled banks but also small banks are racing for listing on the stock market. In the next year, it is estimated that 10 new banks would list on the domestic bourse.

On November 18, Western Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Western Bank) reported obtaining State Bank of Vietnam's approval to list shares on Hochiminh Stock Exchange (HOSE). The bank is speeding up the completion of procedures to go public in next Q1.

Western Bank is former Co Do Bank established in 1988 in Can Tho City and transformed in 2007 early. Its charter capital was raised to one trillion dong in the start of 2008 and will be increased to two trillion dong.

In 2007, Western Bank posted total revenue of 112 billion dong, profit of 41 billion dong. The figures were estimated at 284 billion dong and 138 billion dong in the year later, and 233 billion dong and 69 billion dong in first 9-months of 2009. Currently, the bank covers a network of nearly 6 branches and transaction sites.

"The listing on stock market showed the transparency in the operation and policy of Western Bank. Thus, with the listing plan, we hope that customers will put more belief in Western Bank", a representative spoke.

Previously, SBV governor approved Nam Viet Commercial JS Bank (NaviBank) to list on Hanoi Stock Exchannge (HNX) and the bank is in the procedure completion period.

A similar plan of Orient Commercial JS Bank (OCB) also was passed in the extraordinary shareholders meeting on December 11 with the implementation schedule for 2010. Tran Van Vinh, general director of OCB said that in the end of Dec, its charter capital will be lifted to two trillion dong and to three trillion dong in 2010 with an estimated dividend of 10-12 percent. Meanwhile, DaiA Bank has swapped the plan of listing on UPCoM floor into the listing on the official market by next year.

After raising the charter capital to 3.650 trillion dong, Nguyen Duc Huong-general director of LienVietBank revealed that his bank is preparing for listing on STC in 2010 early. In the first 11 months of this year, the bank earned 542 billion dong in pre-tax profit. In the full year, LienVietBank targets to reach 560 billion dong (higher the previous plan of 465 billion dong) and total assets of 15.302 trillion dong.

After two years of delaying the listing, Eastern Asia (Dong A) Commercial JS Bank will officially put shares into transactions on STC in 2010 when the market's conditions are better.
Other small banks such as Military Bank (MB), Maritime Bank and Myxuyenbank (that has been changed name to MeKong Bank) also built the listing plan.

As estimated, the listing plan of small banks aims to attract investors to reach the compulsory minimum charter capital of three trillion dong before the fiscal year of 2010 comes.

According to stock specialists, the massive listing will diversify goods in finance and banking
but the market could suffer indigestion of bank shares. In fact, in recent time, many banks still were hard to attract investors although listing shares at face value.

Now, two stock floors have total six listed banks namely STB, VCB, CTG, EIB, ACB and SHB.