Singaporean's OCBC Group increases stake at VPBank

Thursday, May 15, 2008
Singapore’s third largest financial group OCBC will increase its Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Private Enterprises (VPBank) shareholdings to 15% following an agreement to buy another 5% of the local bank’s stock.

Under the deal inked in Hanoi on May 14, the Singaporean partner will pay 4.5 times more than the share’s market value, or an equivalent to the price previously paid for its 10% stake.

Since becoming VPBank’s strategic partner in May 2006, OCBC has made a number of deals with the local financier, including spending 7 million USD in personnel training for VPBank.

VPBank is one of the three leading commercial joint-stock banks and has 140 branches nationwide. Its charter capital has reached 2 trillion VND.