Vietnam's stock market expands with new listings
HANOI - Vietnam's stock market, home to Asia's best performing index this year, will trade shares in two more companies this month, and other new listings and share issues are under way, regulators said on Wednesday.
More domestic companies, including Vietnam's fifth-largest bank by assets, Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), are racing to win a share listing licence before changes to corporate tax laws start on Jan. 1, 2007.
The government has said a 50-percent corporate tax relief granted to listed companies for the first two years after their listing will no longer be available after the end of 2006.
Last Friday, Vietnam also licensed the listing of SMC Investment and Trading Company, the first firm from the country's steel sector to join the exchange, along with Malaysian-owned food firm Interfood.
In addition, Sacombank , the first bank to list when it debuted in July, was on Tuesday allowed to issue 19 million new shares in a 1-for-10 share scheme to boost its registered capital. The bank at present has nearly 190 million shares in circulation.
Dong Nai Roof Sheet and Construction Material Co (Donac), with a market value of $18 million, will list on Oct. 10 all of its 12,097,346 shares on the Ho Chi Minh City exchange .
50th stock to list
A State Securities Commission statement said the trading code for Donac was DCT. It will become the 50th stock to list on the bourse, which was opened in 2000.
Based in the southern province of Dong Nai, Donac produces and trades construction materials. It said its roofing sheets account for 40 percent of the domestic market.
Donac's net profit last year rose 14.4 percent from 2004 to 17.25 billion dong ($1.08 million).
Malaysian-owned Interfood Shareholding Company said on Wednesday it will debut with more than 5.7 million shares, or 23.59 percent of its total shares, on the exchange on Oct. 17.
Dong Nai province-based Interfood, valued at around $40 million, produces canned food, soft drinks and fast food for domestic markets and export.
First listed steel firm
Ho Chi Minh City-based SMS will list all of its 6 million shares. SMC's market value or debut date were not immediately clear, and officials could not be reached for comment.
SMC director Nguyen Ngoc Anh told state media the company controlled 3 percent of domestic steel markets in 2005.
"Beside trading, SMC will expand into the area of steel manufacturing," Anh was quoted by Wednesday's state-run Vietnam Economic Times newspaper as saying.
SMC would invest 40 billion dong ($2.5 million) in a factory to process steel in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Anh told shareholders in late September.
ACB hopes to make its debut before the year end after receiving central bank permission last month.
Earlier in September, a State Securities Commission official said that by the end of 2006 at least seven firms would be licensed to list, boosting the bourse's capitalisation to 8.5 percent of gross domestic product, from 7.6 percent in September.
The Vietnam Index closed 0.75 percent up at 541.91 points on Wednesday, having surged 76.2 percent since the end of 2005. ($1=16,012 dong)
Reuters - October 4, 2006.
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