PVF plans to turn into a commercial bank

At a press conference on April 26, PetroVietnam Finance Joint Stock Corp (PVFC-coded PVF)’s Nguyen Thien Bao, general director, said that his firm is preparing to turn into a commercial bank.

To transfer into a commercial bank, one of possibilities is that PVFC will merge with another bank.

In 2012, PVF plans to issue convertible bonds to scale up its chartered capital from six trillion dong to nine trillion dong. If making merger and consolidation with another bank with the current minimum chartered capital of three trillion dong, the new bank’s chartered capital will increase significantly.

In another scenario, currently, PVN holds 20 percent stake in Ocean Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Ocean Bank) with a chartered capital of four trillion dong. This year, Ocean Bank also plans to hike chartered capital to five trillion dong.

For a long time, PVFC has been operating as a commercial bank basing on advantages of being a member unit of Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam-PVN). But, PVFC’s network has only 10 branches and 25 transaction sites nationwide.

Regarding the ownership ratio of PVN in PVFC, when PFCV increases its chartered capital to nine trillion dong, this holding ratio will decrease from 78 percent stake to 52 percent stake. According to PVN’s capital divestment roadmap in member units, PVN’s holding in PVFC will lessen to only 20 percent stake.

Nguyen Thien Bao, PVFC’s general director, also said that currently some partners are eying to buy PVN’s stake in PVFC, however, according to the regulation on the maximum holding ratio for each partner at 15 percent, PVN’s capital divestment to 20 percent can not be done immediately.

Under the regulations on restructuring for state-owned groups, PVN will no longer hold stake in units of finance, bank and insurance.

 

Category: Finance