Hanoi administration to raise over $52 mln from Thuong Dinh Footwear divestment

Hanoi’s municipal government is set to raise nearly VND1.38 trillion ($52.35 million) from the sale of its entire 68.67% stake in Thuong Dinh Footwear Company - a major footwear producer in Vietnam, after two individual investors agreed to buy all shares on offer at a price far above market levels.

The Hanoi Stock Exchange said the auction of more than 6.38 million shares in Thuong Dinh Footwear, registered on the unlisted public companies market UPCoM under the ticker GTD, attracted strong demand, with 15 investors registering to buy a combined 39 million shares. The starting price was set at VND20,500 ($0.78) per share.

Bids reached as high as VND216,000 per share, more than 10 times the starting price. The average winning price was VND215,999 ($8.2) per share, awarded to two individual investors whose identities have not been disclosed.

At the winning price, the transaction value totals nearly VND1.38 trillion ($52.35 million), well above the roughly VND131 billion estimated based on the starting price.

The buyers are required to complete payment between December 16 and December 22.

The winning price is about 2.6 times GTD’s closing market price on Wednesday, December 17 and roughly 14 times the level of around VND15,000 per share before Hanoi announced its divestment plan.

With 9.3 million shares outstanding, Thuong Dinh Footwear’s market capitalization would exceed VND2 trillion ($75.93 million) based on the auction price.

Shares of the Vietnamese footwear producer hit five consecutive session highs in two waves following the divestment announcement, from November 19 to November 25 and again from November 26 to December 2.

In regulatory filings, the company said its business operations remained normal and denied taking any actions to influence its share price, attributing the rise to market supply and demand.

Hanoi announced in mid-November plans to sell its entire 68.67% stake in the company. As of August 29, 2025, the municipal government held 68.87% of the shares, alongside two other shareholders holding more than 5% (Nguyen Hoang Yen with 21.08% and Tran Thi Thanh with 5.35%).

With this result, the Hanoi People's Committee expects to earn approximately VND1,379 billion ($52.35 million) from the divestment transaction.

Founded in 1957 as a state-owned enterprise producing footwear for the military, Thuong Dinh Footwear was once a household name in Vietnam and exported sports shoes to the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The company went public in 2015 and listed on UPCoM a year later, with a market capitalization of more than VND400 billion ($15.19 million) at the time.

In recent years, the brand has lost market share due to outdated production lines and its failure to keep pace with changing consumer tastes, while also struggling to meet social responsibility standards required by European customers.

Revenue fell sharply from about VND200 billion in 2016 to VND80 billion ($3.04 million) in 2023.

The company has reported losses for most of the past decade, posting only a modest profit in 2022 (VND117 million or $4,440), before returning to a loss of more than VND5 billion ($189,830) in 2023, bringing accumulated losses to around VND54 billion ($2.05 million).