Singapore's Platinum Victory seeks to gain veto at Vietnam’s REE

Singaporean fund Platinum Victory Pte. Ltd. has registered to buy more shares of Ho Chi Minh City-based utility firm Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE) to achieve the vetoing power in the latter.

Platinum Victory has informed market regulators of a plan to buy another 30 million shares of REE (HoSE: REE) to raise its holding in the Vietnamese firm to 42.07% from the current 35.7%, or 168.16 million shares.

The fund will buy the shares via either put-through or order-matching transactions on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, or transactions via the Vietnam Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation from November 22 to December 20.

In Vietnam, a shareholder with a 36% stake or more can veto all crucial issues that need approval at a general meeting.

REE shares closed at VND63,800 ($2.51) apiece on Wednesday. At this price, Platinum Victory will have to spend VND1,914 billion ($75.3 million) to purchase that volume.

Last month, the Singaporean fund announced that it had bought 4 million REE shares at VND80,000 ($3.15) each, 26% higher than the closing price on October 23, to lift its ownership to 35.7%.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s Apollo Asia Fund Ltd on October 24 said it had sold 1.28 million REE shares on October 23 to lower its holding to 4.75% from the previous 5.02%, no longer being a major shareholder.

REE earned a consolidated net profit of VND1.51 trillion ($59.56 million) on revenue of VND6.05 trillion in the first three quarters of this year, down 29.3% and 7% year-on-year, respectively.