No good mornings in Viet Nam for ANZ

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Not content with the spilt blood at Opes Prime, Tricom, Centro and the rest of the $980 million in bad debt provisions and set asides for the March half year, the ANZ Bank is nursing another nasty multi-million dollar hole.

Its move into the Vietnamese stock market has sprung a leak, which is an unfortunate turn of events given the Opes Prime and Tricom experiences. In September of last year, ANZ reported that it had completed the transaction to acquire a 10% stake in Saigon Securities Incorporation (SSI) in Viet Nam for a total investment cost of US$88 million (A$107 million).

Completion follows approvals from shareholders and regulators.

Mr Gilles Plante, Joint Managing Director of ANZ’s Markets business will join the SSI Board.

SSI is the leading securities and investment banking company in Viet Nam and is listed on the Hanoi Securities Trading Centre.

The ANZ said the purchase price includes the equity stake and the purchase of interest bearing bonds which are convertible in three tranches at ANZ’s discretion over the next two and a half years. But from Viet Nam comes word that the stockmarket in the emerging communist-run economy has had a bit of a meltdown as the authorities seek to cool a boom.

The current value of their investment in SSI has fallen from the acquisition price of 170,000 VND (Viet Nam Dong) per share (about $US10) to around 47,000 VND per share (about $US2.95). With the cost of acquisition at $A107 million, ANZ is nursing a book loss of about $A70 million for the investment in SSI.

Locals say there has been much controversy about the chairman and founder of SSI which has dragged the share price down, with further downward pressure on the share price of SSI expected. (Crikey.com.au)