Re-insurer may be Vietnam's first financial listing
HANOI - Vietnam National Re-Insurance Corporation, the country's key re-insurer, said on Thursday it planned to list shares soon in Hanoi, possibly becoming the first listed financial sector company in the country.
The corporation, also known as Vinare, until recently provided the only access to international re-insurance services available to Vietnamese insurers. Experts say that since its partial privatisation in late 2004, it maintains a leading role.
At the partial privatisation, when about 40 percent of Vinare was sold to institutions, the company's 34.3 million shares were valued at 343 billion dong ($21.6 million).
"We are preparing for the listing and will make the debut very soon, within this month or next," a Vinare investment department official told Reuters. He declined to say what value he expected the debut to put on the company.
Only 950,000 employee-owned shares -- less than 3 percent of the company's share capital -- will be tradeable on the initial listing.
The institutional holdings, plus a 56.5 percent stake retained by the Finance Ministry, will be made tradeable from early 2008, in accordance with a three-year block on the sale of stock agreed at the time of the 2004 sell-off. Other institutional shareholders are state-run and joint-venture insurance companies.
Brokers said initial 950,000 transferable share total was too small to offer liquidity.
"There are investors who are willing to buy, but Vinare shareholders did not sell, so we have no idea of the stock's value," said one broker in Hanoi.
State-run companies in Vietnam often undergo partial privatisations through the sale of shares to employees and outsiders before the firm eventually applies for a listing licence and makes its debut on the stock exchange.
Vinare would become the 10th firm to trade on the tiny Hanoi Securities Trading Center, nearly a year after the exchange was launched in March 2005.
Last month, the $531 million listing of dairy firm Vinamilk doubled the larger Ho Chi Minh City stock market's capitalisation, becoming the 34th company to list on the exchange, which was set up in 2000.
Mainstream banks including Sacombank, Vietcombank and Asia Commercial Bank are also preparing for Vietnam listings.
On Monday, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai visited the Hanoi exchange and beat the gong to resume trading after a week-long Lunar New Year holiday.
"The demand for funds is very high in the next few years so Vietnam's stock market growth must be very fast, at 150 percent a year at average," the Vietnam Economic Times newspaper quoted Khai as saying. ($1=15,888 dong)
Reuters - February 9, 2006.
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