IFC seeks to channel $320 mln into 3 Vietnamese banks

The World Bank Group’s investment arm IFC has proposed investments totaling $320 million in three Vietnamese banks to support their loan portfolios for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and housing finance.

The three banks receiving investments would be SHB, VIB and OCB.

The first proposal is a $120 million, three-year senior loan for SHB to the Hanoi-based lender’s SME loan portfolio, including women-owned SMEs and those participating in supply chain finance.

The other two are for VIB and OCB, with $100 million each. For Ho Chi Minh City-based VIB is a 5-year senior unsecured loan for its housing portfolio, while OCB, also based in HCMC, would get a 5-year senior loan to support SME finance.

IFC had three separate disclosures, seen on Tuesday, for the three proposals, which all show the international giant investment institution expects to approve the proposals by the same date of December 20 this year.

IFC, focused on the private sector, has been operating in Vietnam since 1997. It says 1993-established SHB had total assets of $22.5 billion as of June 30. SHB listed its shares on the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) in April 2009 and later moved to Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) in October 2021. SHB’s major shareholder is Hanoi-based T&T Group, a private Vietnamese conglomerate.

Meanwhile, VIB is a full-service commercial bank with 177 branches and transaction offices as of this September. As of the end of last December, the main shareholders of VIB included Commonwealth Bank of Australia (a 20% stake), other institutional investors (9.34%), and individual shareholders (remaining 70.66%), IFC says.

As of the end of this September, OCB had total assets of $8.1 billion, the investment giant says. OCB's major shareholder is Trinh Van Tuan, its current chairman, and people related to him, who hold an aggregate 19.76% of the bank's equity. OCB also has a strategic investor, Japan’s Aozora Bank, which holds a 15% stake since June 2020.

IFC revealed on November 10 it had proposed a $100 million senior loan with five years in tenor to Hanoi-based SeABank, to be exclusively used for the Vietnamese lender’s housing portfolio. IFC’s management board is expected to approve the proposed investment by December 19 this year.