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Both The Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) and Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) plans to auction their holdings in Maritime Bank and Ocean Bank (OCB) in March.
VNPT has registered to offload its entire holding of 71.6 million shares in Maritime Bank at the starting price of 11,900 VND (0.52 USD) per share, equivalent to 6.09 percent of the bank’s capital, in an auction scheduled for March 10.
The move is in line with the direction of Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue to urge the telecommunication group to divest from its listed member companies.
On a smaller sale, Agribank will sell 390,665 shares in Ocean Bank during an auction in mid-March. The starting price is set at 10,200 VND per share.
Mobifone, one of the three largest mobile network operators in Vietnam, also plans to divest from Southeast Asia Commercial Bank (SeABank) and Tien Phong Bank (TPBank) this year, after the failure in 2016.
In April last year, Mobifone put up its entire holding of 33.4 million shares of SeABank, equivalent to 6.12 percent of the bank’s capital, for sale at the initial price of 9,600 VND per share, but no investors registered to buy.
In December2016, Tan Thuan Industrial Promotion Co Ltd (IPC) and Saigontourist also successfully offloaded their entire holdings in SaigonBank.