Vietnam Export Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Eximbank) sold its 1.31 million shares in Sai Gon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank) by the end of December 2017, as part of its plans to divest from the bank.
Eximbank’s shareholding in Sacombank now stands at 7.94 per cent, equivalent to 143.17 million shares of the bank.
In April 2017, Eximbank announced a plan to divest its entire stake in Sacombank. Since then, the bank has continuously reduced its ownership in Sacombank, reaching 8.88 per cent stake in November.
“Despite intention to withdraw all capital at Sacombank, Eximbank has not been able to find investors to transfer all the shares. It, therefore, sells the shares gradually on the stock exchange,” the bank’s senior leader told local media, adding that it is still looking for partners to transfer the shares.
Eximbank’s reduction of ownership in Sacombank is to meet the Circular No. 36 issued by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), stipulating that a commercial bank can own stakes in at most two other credit institutions with less than 5 per cent of voting rights.
The Ho Chi Minh-based Eximbank is one of the largest joint stock commercial banks in Vietnam, with charter capital of more than $527 million and equity of more than $585.2 million.
As of the third quarter of 2017, Eximbank’s total assets reached $6.07 billion, an increase of 7.8 per cent from the beginning of the year.
Sacombank is the country’s fifth-largest partly-private bank in terms of total assets, which were estimated at VND290.86 trillion ($12.77 billion) after it merged with Phuong Nam (Southern) Bank in 2015.
The bank was named one of the top five banks to undergo restructuring in 2017, along with the four banks the central bank acquired at a price of zero dong in 2015: VNCB, PG Bank, Ocean Bank and Dong A Bank.
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