VietinBank to sell $2b of bonds overseas

VietinBank, Vietnam’s largest partly private lender by assets, plans to raise $2 billion this year by selling bonds overseas, a state-run news website said on Tuesday. The Hanoi-based lender will sell the bonds in several tranches, the first of which will be a five-year bond to raise $500 million, the NDHMoney web site quoted VietinBank Chairman Pham Huy Hung as saying. VietinBank, or Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade, is in negotiations to sell stakes in the firm and aims to finish the sale to a strategic partner by the end of the third quarter, Hung was quoted as saying. VietinBank aimed to sell shares to the strategic partner at around 30,000 dong (1.44) each, Hung said, well above the current price. Its shares closed down 0.4 per cent at 25,100 dong each on Tuesday, as shareholders discussed the bank’s performance and its targets including profit, registered capital and the total assets for 2012 at a general meeting in Hanoi. VietinBank has nearly halved its forecast for gross profit growth in 2012 to 11 per cent, according to a draft bank document, after the central bank set limits on credit growth.