Major private lender VPBank to raise foreign ownership limit to 30%

VPBank, Vietnam’s biggest lender in terms of charter capital, will increase its foreign ownership limit to 30%, from 17.642% at end-2022.

In a statement sent to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) on Tuesday, VPBank said the implementation date would follow the legal framework and its plan on issuing shares to a strategic foreign partner.

Given such a move, VPBank, listed on the HoSE as VPB, will join a group of Vietnamese banks with foreign ownership limit at 30%, including Sacombank, Nam A Bank, Kienlongbank, Saigon-Hanoi Bank, and BIDV.

On Wednesday, VPB was the second-most active stock on the HoSE with 23.27 million shares changing hands, only after Hoa Phat Group (HPG) with 52.57 million shares.

Of which, foreign investors bought 23.06 million VPB shares and sold 2.76 million, recording net buying of 20.3 million units. The remaining room for foreign investors at the lender was 88.44 million shares, equivalent to 1.31%.

VPB shares closed the trading session on Wednesday at VND21,800 ($0.91), up 3.81% from the previous session.

The lender recorded a post-tax profit of VND4.19 trillion ($174.23 million) in the first half of this year, or one-third of that in the same period of 2022, according to its financial statements. Total operating income was VND25.14 trillion ($1.04 billion), down 20.3% year-on-year.

In March, Japanese giant lender Sumitomo Mitsui Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC) signed a deal to pay $1.5 billion for a 15% stake in VPBank, making SMBC a strategic investor in the Hanoi-based Vietnamese lender.

In October 2021, SMBC renamed consumer credit firm FE Credit of VPBank as VPBank SMBC Finance Co. Ltd. after spending about $1.37 billion acquiring a 49% stake in FE Credit. The major consumer credit firm targets unbanked and underbanked residents in Vietnam.