PGBank marriage to give Maritime Bank a facelift

Taking in a PGBank merger is expected to help Maritime Bank to grow strongly amid increasingly fierce competition among banks and limited room for medium and small lenders to expand, according to Maritime Bank.

The Vietnamese bank is listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) as MSB. In new documents to be submitted at its upcoming annual general meeting of shareholders, MSB plans to take in another Vietnamese commercial bank that meets norms in terms of total asset value, equity, and credit quality.

Rumors have been spreading about a future merger of Petrolimex Commercial Joint Stock Bank (PGBank), registered on the unlisted public company market UpCOM as PGB. MSB is rumored as the one that would take in the merger.

On April 7, the Vietnam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) will offer all 120 million of its PGB shares, or 40% of all PGB shares, to the public via an auction on the HoSE, with a starting price of VND21,300 ($0.91) per share. According to a recent announcement by the HoSE, 16 investors have registered to buy nearly 213 million PGB shares, 80% higher than those up for sale.

On the stock market, PGB has made strong gains of up to 44% in the past two months. This strengthens the hypothesis of a "marriage" between these two banks, which boast a close relationship.

On its website, TNG Holdings Vietnam names two affiliated companies in the banking sector, namely MSB and PGBank.

Four of PGBank’s nine-member board of directors are closely related to MSB, namely vice chairman Nguyen Tien Dung (chairman of TNPower, CEO of TNG Asset), Nguyen Phi Hung (former CEO of MSB), Nilesh Banglorawala (former chief accountant of MSB), and Oliver Schwarzhaupt (former CEO of MSB).

On the bank’s management board, Nguyen Phi Hung is CEO, and Hoang Xuan Hiep, who was a former deputy CEO of MSB, serves as deputy CEO. Meanwhile, Duong Anh Tuyet, former deputy CEO of MSB, is now a member of PGBank’s supervisory board.

The strong presence of MSB partly explains the failed "marriages" between PGBank and Vietinbank, MBBank and later HDBank. In particular, the HDBank - PGBank deal was even approved in principle by the State Bank of Vietnam. Billionaire Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao's HDBank also sent a representative to join the PGBank board in late 2019, but the deal still arrived at a dead end.

In late 2021, a large real estate group in southern Vietnam wanted to invest in PGBank, but then had to withdraw its offer because the price was too high.

At the beginning of 2021, a series of MSB leaders assuming executive and management roles at PGBank led to rumors about a merger between the two banks. However, CEO Nguyen Hoang Linh of MSB at that time rejected the information.

“Some former leaders have moved to work at PGBank after they ended their contracts at MSB. Their job changes have nothing related to the bank’s merger plans," said Linh.

That was the story two years ago, and the current situation is much different, with the joint stock commercial banking system increasingly revealing its shortcomings, and the central bank aggressively tightening cross-ownership and “backyard" lending.

In terms of growth potential, small banks like PGBank are increasingly being left behind in the race for market share and profit, while medium-sized banks like MSB are also under great pressure and do not have much room to scale up.

This "marriage" is expected to open up a positive outlook for both parties. MSB will have great room for growth, as it did from its merger with the Mekong Development Bank (MDB) in 2015. Meanwhile, this will also be an important milestone for PGBank.

In Vietnam, MSB's owners are leading figures in the banking sector. This bank used to hold a 9.98% stake in PGBank, 4.83% in MBBank, and 4.66% in PVcomBank. However, the actual numbers will be much more impressive if they included shares held by individuals and legal entities.

In a little-known deal, MSB owners used to be a silent but formidable force at VPBank at the beginning of the last decade, before giving the game to VPBank's existing ownership team.

The significant ownership ratio of private shareholders at PGBank gives them control of the bank’s fate, and gradually transforms it into a channel for financing their projects. A large number of PGB shares are being mortgaged by this group of shareholders at MSB.