Banks sprint to transfer listing to official bourses

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Banks are sprinting to transfer the listing of shares from Unlisted Public Company Market (UpCom) to official bourses before the Law on Securities takes effect from the beginning of 2021, which would require two-year listing on UpCom before a public company could go to official bourses.

The Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) said on December 16 that Bac A Bank (BAB) registered to list more than 708.5 million shares on HNX. BAB was currently traded on UpCom with an estimated market capitalisation of 12.7 trillion VND.

The HCM City Stock Exchange (HOSE) recently received an application for listing of 456.4 million shares of Nam A Bank (NAB), worth around 4.56 trillion VND.

NAB was listed on UpCom from October 9 at the referece price of 13,500 VND per share.

According to BIDV Securities Company, transferring the listing of shares from UpCom to official bourses, especially HOSE, would help stocks have higher valuations thank to better transparency and liquidity, adding that the share valuation of Vietnamese banks was still at a low level compared to the region and banking stocks were promising to increase next year.

Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) completed the transfer of share listing from HNX to HOSE earlier this month.

Banks were also racing to speed up listing on official markets when the deadline was approaching. Under the project of restructuring the securities and insurance market to 2020 with a vision to 2025 approved in February 2019, all commercial banks must be listed and registered for trading in official markets.

About 1.175 billion shares of Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MSB) were officially traded on HOSE from December 23 at the reference price of 15,000 VND per share, equivalent to a market capitalisation of more than 17.625 trillion VND. MSB was the first bank newly listed on HOSE this year.

After many years of delay, Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OCB) decided to list its shares on HOSE. Trinh Van Tuan, OCB’s chairman, said that the bank was expected to be listed on the southern bourse this month after receiving HOSE’s approval.

The Vietnam Securities Depository (VDS) has announced to grant code ABB for An Binh Commercial Joint Stock Bank. Accordingly, ABB registered to trade more than 571.3 million shares on UpCom with a total market capitalisation of 5.73 trillion VND.

HNX approved the trading of 300 million shares of PG Bank on UpCom starting from Thursday at the reference price of 15,500 VND per share.

Southeast Asia Bank (SeABank) also registered for the listing of nearly 1.2 billion shares on HOSE.

In November, LienVietPostBank and Vietnam International Bank were officially listed on HOSE.

There was also a wave of transferring the listing of shares to HOSE recently.

HNX approved the delisting of 441.7 million shares of Vinaconex (VCG) from December 22 and VCG would be transferred to HOSE.

First listed on HNX in mid-2018, Vinaconex’s charter capital increased from 1.5 trillion VND to more than 4.4 trillion VND.

In October, Ben Tre Pharmaceutical Company (Bepharco) transferred the listing of shares to HOSE after more than 11 years on HNX.

HOSE also received the application of Hanoi South Housing and Urban Development Corporation and Vicostone to transfer their listings from HNX.

HOSE is the largest bourse in Vietnam, accounting for more than 75 percent of the market capitalisation, equivalent to 63 percent of GDP in 2019, statistics showed.

The southern bourse also had higher requirements than HNX, such as minimum charter capital of 120 billion VND, compared to 30 billion VND on the northern bourse./.