Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd is looking for a buyer for its 10 percent stake in Vietnam's Sacombank, an executive at the Vietnamese bank said, becoming the first foreign bank to sell its stake in a domestic lender.
The move follows ANZ's Vietnamese unit obtaining permission to operate as a fully foreign-owned bank in October 2008. ANZ is one of 10 foreign banks to have bought shares in Vietnamese lenders.
Sacombank has worked with ANZ on the issue, the Vietnamese bank's chairman Dang Van Thanh said in a statement issued after its annual shareholder meeting on Monday. He added that ANZ was looking for a buyer for its stake.
Thanh did not say who might buy the stake, but local media reported that a Singaporean bank could be picked, though it did not mention names.
United Overseas Bank holds 15 percent of Phuong Nam Bank, and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Ltd owns 15 percent of VPBank.
Shareholders approved Sacombank's targets for this year to raise total assets by almost half to 146 trillion dong ($7.65 billion), registered capital by 37 percent to 9.18 trillion dong and annual gross profit by 26 percent to 2.4 trillion dong.
Sacombank, also known as Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Bank, has also targeted annual credit growth of 45 percent to around 87 trillion dong and aims to increase deposits by 50 percent to 129 trillion dong.
Sacombank has said its gross profit jumped 35 percent to $15.7 million in the first two months of this year.
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