PG Bank stock auction attracts 16 investors

The PG Bank stock auction has attracted 16 investors interested in buying the 120 million shares up for sale, including nine domestic individuals and seven domestic institutions, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE).

Individual investors and institutional investors have registered to buy 13,501,000 shares and 199,474,500 shares, respectively, which is nearly 1.8 times the total number of shares up for grabs.

Petrolimex, Vietnam's biggest gasoline retailer, will auction 120 million shares in PG Bank, equivalent to 40% of the bank's charter capital, with a starting price of VND21,300 ($0.91).

The corporation is currently the largest shareholder in PG Bank, which is registered on the unlisted public company market (UPCoM) as PGB.

The divestment will be conducted by public auction on the HoSE on April 7, 2023. The minimum buy-in number is 100 shares and investors must register in multiples of 100.

The PGB share price reached VND24,000 ($1.02) per unit at Tuesday's close, 13% higher than the starting price of VND21,300. In the past two months, the stock has increased by more than 40%.

In 2023, PG Bank has set a target of net interest income of VND1.4 trillion ($59.62 million), up 17.3% year-on-year, and after-tax profit of VND424 billion ($18.06 million), up 4.9%. The earning per share (EPS) plan is VND1,414 per unit, up 4.8%.

PG Bank is not in the group of weak banks, and its bad debt is also less than 3%. The biggest limitation of this bank is that Petrolimex's 40% ownership exceeds the regulated ceiling of 15%. To ensure the prescribed ownership ratio, Petrolimex has a plan to divest. Since 2014, many banks, including HDBank, have eyed PG Bank stakes, but so far no deals have been made.

In early March, Petrolimex sad that it will publicly auction 120 million PG Bank shares through the HoSE with a starting price of VND21,300 ($0.89) per share, with proceeds estimated at VND2.556 trillion ($107.7 million).

According to Petrolimex's financial report, by the end of 2022, the value of its investment in PG Bank was more than VND1.83 trillion ($78.21 million), equivalent to VND15,285 ($0.65) per share.

In 2022, PG Bank's pre-tax profit reached VND506 billion ($21.58 million), up 54% year-on-year and exceeding its target by 24%.

As of December 31, 2022, PG Bank's total assets stood at nearly VND49 trillion ($2.09 billion), up about 21% compared to the end of 2021. Credit increased by 5.6%, while capital mobilization rose by more than 11%.

Previously, Petrolimex announced it would complete its divestment in PG Bank in 2021, but at its 2022 annual general meeting, the timeline was delayed to the first half of Q4/2022.

PG Bank had planned to merge with state-controlled VietinBank in 2015 and HDBank in 2018, with both options later cancelled.

At the same time, Vietnam’s Maritime Bank (MSB) also planned to submit to shareholders a plan to merge with "a domestic credit institution".

MSB said that the credit institution expected to be merged is a commercial bank in normal operation, with average asset and equity levels, and good credit quality.

In recent years, many personnel who held important positions at MSB have joined PG Bank.

In May 2020, Hoang Xuan Hiep moved from MSB to join PG Bank and is currently deputy general director in charge of debt settlement and collection, legal issues and compliance. In November 2020, Nguyen Phi Hung, former deputy general director of MSB was appointed as acting general director of PG Bank and is currently general director of this bank.

Most recently, Do Thanh Cong joined PG Bank on February 1, 2023 as deputy general director in charge of re-appraisal and approval. He used to hold many important roles of MSB like member of the bank's credit and investment council, member of its risk management committee, and member of its risk handling committee, etc.