Vietcombank’s assets jump 14 percent

Vietcombank’s assets jump 14 percent

Vietcombank tellers complete transactions for clients in Ho Chi Minh City The state-run Vietcombank has reported its assets rose 14 percent to VND196.12 trillion (US$12.2 billion).

The Hanoi-based bank, which last month became Vietnam’s first state-run bank to conduct an initial public offering, said its loans surged 44 percent to VND95.58 trillion from the end of 2006, less than 1.3 percent of which were bad. Vietcombank, or the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, took in VND143.64 trillion in deposits last year, up 20 percent from 2006. The bank had a gross profit of VND3.1 trillion last year, it said without giving comparative figures for 2006 or net profit. It handled export and import payments worth $26 billion last year, a rise of 14 percent from 2006 and accounted for 26.6 percent of the country’s external trade. The bank said last month its profit would fall in 2007 as mounting competition from more than 30 partly private banks and 28 foreign banks operating in the country hit revenues and boosted costs. Vietcombank, the largest Vietnamese firm to conduct an IPO, raised $652 million late last year offering, the first share sale by a state bank in Vietnam, valuing the bank at around $10 billion. It is expected to announce a foreign strategic investor before listing on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange by the end of March. It also plans to list in Hong Kong or Singapore in 2009. Source: Reuters