Only 10,000 out of 53.4 million shares of the Military Bank (MB) offered by Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) were sold at an auction on October 15, according to the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX).
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A total of 10 investors took part in the auction, but only one successfully purchased 10,000 shares at the price of VND21,900 (US$0.94) apiece, while the remaining nine failed to buy the registered amount of 5.93 million shares at offering prices lower than VND21,300 (US$0.91).
Vietcombank is expected to offer the remaining shares amount on the stock market via put-through transaction, for which the specific date has not been disclosed.
At the annual general meeting in 2018, Nghiem Xuan Thanh, Vietcombank's chairman, informed the bank's intention of divesting capital in other banks where Vietcombank holds more than a 5% stake, including MB and Vietnam Export Import Commercial Bank (Eximbank).
The move is in line with the regulation on limiting cross holding. Under the regulation set by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), commercial banks are permitted to hold shares in a maximum of two other credit institutions, with the stake in each not exceeding 5%. The SBV requires banks to comply with its requirements before June 30 next year.
Vietcombank currently holds a 6.97% stake or 150.6 million shares in MB, and an 8.24% stake or 101.2 million shares in Eximbank.
The sale of MB shares is supposed to help Vietcombank reduce its holding at the bank to 4.5%, which, however, failed to materialize.
