Sacombank shares firm despite profit fall

Shares in Vietnam’s only listed bank edged up nearly 1% on Thursday October 19 as investors showed strong interest despite a decline in third quarter profit at Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Bank, traders said.
Shares in Sacombank, as it is known, closed at 62,500 dong (US$3.9) on the HCM City Securities Trading Centre with 404,320 shares changing hands, up 0.8% from Wednesday’s closing price of 62,000 dong a share.
“The price is way below its IPO price, so investors still think it is a good bargain now,” a HCM City trader said.
The stock made its debut on July 12 at 78,000 dong (US$4.9), but fell gradually after the bank announced plans to issue nearly 19 million additional shares, traders said.
Sacombank said in a statement seen on Thursday October 19 it would list 18.99 million additional shares on the stock exchange from November 15.
The bank reported its third-quarter net profit dropped more than 30% from a year earlier to 91.3 billion dong (US$5.7 million), resulting in a dividend of 5.46% versus 8.4% in the same period last year.
The bank did not provide reasons for the fall in profit.
Sacombank said its bad debts on September 30 were 0.55% of its outstanding loans of around 12.23 trillion dong (US$763 million).
The HCM City-based bank went public in the late 1990s and is Vietnam’s second-largest partially private bank with total assets of more than 22 trillion dong (US$1.37 billion).
The VN Index closed up 1.16% at 524.59 points on Thursday October 19. The index, Asia’s smallest but fastest-growing stock market in 2006, hit its lifetime high of 632.69 points on April 25.

 

Category: Finance