Shinpetrol releases Q1 report

Thursday, May 8, 2008
The Vinashin Petroleum Investment and Transport Joint Stock Co (Shinpetrol), a subsidiary of the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group, recently reported that ending the first quarter of 2008, the company reached total asset of over 2.427 trillion dong, 262.291 billion dong in revenue from sales and service provision, nearly 84.251 billion dong in combine profit, more than 3.282 billion dong in revenue from financial activities.
Also Shinpetrol gained 66.092 billion dong in business profit, total pre-tax profit of over 62.495 billion dong with CIT of 6.061 billion dong, leading the total after-tax profit of 56.433 billion dong, and EPS of 4,089 dong.
Additionally, in Jan-March, the company spent 14.317 billion dong on financial cost, 1.432 billion dong on sale cost, 5.691 billion dong on corporate administration cost and 37.952 billion dong on other costs.

Red ink as listed firms post Q1 performance

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Financial results of listed companies in the first quarter were eagerly awaited by investors particularly when the market was seeing weak turnover. However, figures from websites of the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) and Hanoi Securities Trading Center (HaSTC) on May 4 showed that there was only a handful, of reports posted.
Namely, there were only 12 reports out of total 151 listed businesses in Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange and 45 reports out of 135 listed business in HaSTC. However, information about quarterly business results was released at websites of many businesses such as Hoa Phat, FPT, REE, VNM and others while having not yet been listed at Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange and HaSTC.
Business results in the first quarter demonstrated a significant difference in business of listed companies.

According to a report of REE, a multi-sector company specialising in real estate, securities, posted total revenue of 275.26 billion dong however ran a loss of 106.15 billion dong in pre-tax profit.

In the banking sector, STB reported a positive result although the credit market met big changes and difficulties over the last time. STB's pre-tax profit in the first quarter was 435 billion dong, a year-on-year increase of 135%, the bank's deposits increased by 133%, total outstanding loans 141%.

In the production sector, most of reports showed good business results, even some businesses had very impressive growth. As for the seafood processing sector, which was assumed to meet various difficulties in the export markets and disadvantages of the forex rate, ABT still reported after-tax profit growth of 52.39% compared to the same period last year, reaching 11.2 billion dong, fulfilling over 28% of its yearly plan. DPM gained a pre-tax profit of 425.5 billion dong, or 35.8% of the annual plan.

Although most of listed companies reporting business results early showed positive figures, many other businesses reported losses in business and production.

This demonstrated difference among listed companies. Among construction material group, some businesses were impacted from price increase. Namely, TCR reported a revenue reduction of 8% because of high increase in input costs.

Meanwhile, HPG reported good business growth in the first quarter.

Gemadept puts up in Saigon Commodity Service JSC

Thursday, May 8, 2008
HCM City Department of Planning and Investment recently granted license for the establishment of Saigon Commodity Service Joint Stock Co (SCSC) operating in fields of petroleum trading agent, building bridge, port, civil works, delivery service with an initial chartered capital of 300 billion dong.
In which, listed firm Gemadept invests 23% as a founding shareholder of the company.
Earlier, Gemadept also cooperated with Terminal Link and Transportation Service One Member Limited Co to set up a joint venture with the chartered capital of US$120 million.

PAC targets a 55b dong profit this year

Thursday, May 8, 2008
The Southern Dry Cell and Storage Battery Joint Stock Co (Pinaco-coded PAC)'s shareholders' meeting recently passed this year's business plan with 1.2 trillion dong in revenue and 55 billion dong from after tax profit.
At the same time, the company also plans to offer 1.5 million more shares to the existing shareholders at the ratio of one new shares for 10 shares held in the second quarter of this year.

In the first quarter of 2008, PAC made a revenue of 297.403 billion dong from sales and service provision, up 70.03% on 2007 and 11.657 billion dong from after tax profit, a year-on-year increase of 94.87% or 5.674 billion dong.

Reportedly, last year, the company brought 989.8 billion dong in revenue and 45.032 billion dong from after tax profit, up 129% on 2006 and targeted dividend of 15%.

PV Drilling posts 234.8b dong Q1 profit

Thursday, May 8, 2008
PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services Joint Stock Co (PV Drilling) recently announced its business result in the first quarter of this year with 766.4 billion dong in revenue, rising 219% against the same period of 2007 and 234.8 billion dong from after tax profit, up 547% year on year.
This year, the company targets to bring the figures to three trillion dong and 700 billion dong respectively.

Agribank-VGFM Co's business license revoked

Thursday, May 8, 2008
The State Securities Commission (SSC) on May 5 issued a decision to revoke the business licensee No9dated on December 21, 2006 of Agribank-VGFM Securities Investment Fund Management Joint Venture Co (AVIM).

Under it, since May 5, AVIM must stop all activities noted in the business license and announce information via E-newspaper or printing paper during three consecutively editions.

According to the business license, AVIM with a chartered capital of over 16.09 trillion dong was a joint venture between Agribank accounting for 51% of chartered capital and Vietnam Global Fund Management 49% with the operation duration of 50 years.

Pham Hong Son, head of the SSC's securities management board said that AVIM is the first fund management company in Vietnam being revoked the business license. Under the securities law, after 12 months from being licensed, the companies that do not start operation will be revoked the business license.

Central bank urged to inject capital into commercial banks

Thursday, May 8, 2008
The deposit growth of the banking system in April was 1.2%, far lower than last month's 3.46% and 3.38% of the same period last year. The central bank has considered refinancing capital to some banks to assist their payment capacity.

The slow growth of deposits in April in two financial centres of Hanoi and HCM City caused imbalance of capital and led to difficulties in liquidity in some banks.

Most of difficulties in payment capacity of banks started from un-profitability of huge amount of loans. There were some reasons as follow:

* The monetary policy was tightened from 2008 in order to curb inflation, hence, the economy would grow slowly and more and more loans would inevitably not generate profits.

* The increasingly higher interest rate, particularly in the first four months, pushed up costs of loans. Interest rates for deposits were high, terms of deposits were shorter [mainly from one to three months] while some 40% of loans at banks carried terms of more than one-year with low interest rates. Therefore, many banks were facing up imbalance of terms between capital and capital usage.

Overdue debts of banks were also quickly increasing because clients preferred being fined an interest rate of 150% to borrowing new loans with high interest rates. Some clients were afraid that they could not continue borrowing capital after they had paid loans. This was also one of reasons for weak liquidity of banks.

* Some banks, mainly commercial joint stock banks, fell into difficulties because they had injected too much money into real estate and securities. When the real estate market and the stock market underwent recession, clients lost debt payment capacity, collaterals and mortgages could not be sold, which significantly impacted banks.

Since 2007, the interbank market in Vietnam has signalled a transformation from a market which assists payment capacity into a profitable market. Weaknesses in payment basically came from limited risk management capacity of banks and partly aftermaths of the transformation of the interbank market. Many banks used loans from other banks in order to offer long-term loans to the economy.

When the monetary market was scarce of money, some small banks, even some branches of state-run banks also did not have enough prestige to borrow loans from big banks and branches of foreign banks. Currently, some medium joint stock banks and several small banks borrowed large banks loans with interest rates of 14-18% a year, or even 20%-22% a year and then relent some small banks loans with interest rates of from 24%-27% a year.

When some banks met difficulties in liquidity, measures on interest rates, the interbank market, the open market were useless. Thus, the central bank announced that it would refinance capital to banks. However, the central bank will be very carefully because refinancing capital will help commercial banks to ensure payment capacity, avoid risks while pushing supply of money, impacting such target of reining inflation accordingly.

As for commercial banks, although they expected to be refinanced at the current low interest rate of only 7.5% a year, they were also afraid that if clients are informed of this information, clients will have negative assessments for banks' liquidity.

Government to cut 25% of investment capital raised from G-bond issues

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung stated that 25% of investment capital raised from government bonds will be cut to curb inflation and maintain stable growth.
According to Resolution No 08/2007/QH12 on the budget estimation for 2008, the National Assembly passed the bond issue of no more than 37 trillion dong including 28 trillion dong raised for investing in irrigation and road works and the remainder will be invested in upgrading district hospitals.
Before the increasing inflation at the moment, the government will consider to cut 25% of investment capital raised from G-bond issues and do the same for international bond issues in the next time.

Vietcombank issues C/Ds in both US dollar and euro

Thursday, May 8, 2008
The Bank of Foreign Trade of Viet Nam, or Vietcombank recently issued Certificate of Deposits (C/Ds) in US dollar and euro to institutions and individuals with progressive interest rates.

Vietcombank's C/Ds have the highest interest rate of 6% per annum in US dollar and 2.7% per annum in euro.

At the same time, Vietcombank also increased dong deposit rates in some its branches to 12% per year, the highest level in the market at the moment.

The bank's these moves aim to increase its capital and limit capital rotation amongst banks due to the difference in interest rates.

Military Bank reports performance

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Established in 1994 with the headquarters located at No3 Lieu Giai Street in Hanoi's Ba Dinh District, after 14 years of operation, so far Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB) has launched 72 transaction offices and built cooperation relationship with over 800 banks' agents worldwide. Up to the end of 2007, the bank's chartered capital was raised to two trillion dong that could be 3.4 trillion dong within this year.
International payment sector is considered the bank's strength. In addition, MB also provides and meets demands of international payment services to four financial institutions namely Saigon Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB), Petrolimex Gasoline Commercial Joint Stock Bank (PG Bank), the Shipbuilding Industrial Financial Co (VFC) under the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industrial Corp (Vinashin) and PetroVietnam Finance Joint Stock Corp (PVFC).
Ending the first quarter of this year, MB's international payment turnover reached nearly US$700 million that could be between US$2.5 billion and US$3 billion for this whole year.

The year 2007 was regarded as a strong growth year of the bank with 31 trillion dong in total asset, exceeding 30% of the year's plan, 23.01 trillion dong in total deposits, exceeding 40% of the year's target, 10.915 trillion dong in total outstanding debt, 610 billion dong form pre tax profit, nearly two fold against 2006 and the bad debt rate decreased 40% from 2006.

This year, MB targets to expand its network to at least 100 transaction sites and its total asset could be 47 trillion dong including its subsidiaries.

At present, MB is pursuing the development strategy of becoming a multipurpose banking group via establishing and running member companies like Thang Long Securities Co (TSC), Hanoi Investment Fund Management Co (HFM) and Asset Management Co (AMC).

Hang Xanh car service provider to pay 6% dividend

Thursday, May 8, 2008
The Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) announced that May 15 is the ex-interest date of Hang Xanh Automobile Service Joint Stock Co, Haxaco (coded HAX) and May 19 is the deadline for the company to close the list of shareholders.
On June 16, the listed firm will pay a dividend of 6% for the second phase of 2007 to the shareholders.

136th company lists on northern floor

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Hanoi Securities Trading Center (HaSTC) yesterday May 6 officially welcomed the 136th share code namely Saigon Cable Joint Stock Co with the total volume of 29,742,020 CSG-coded shares.

Ending the first trading session on the northern bourse, CSG-coded shares reached average price of 14,100 dong per share with the total volume of 185,600 shares being traded.

CSG with a chartered capital of 300 billion dong, of which state owns 31.14% and the company's shareholders 68.86%, specialises in producing and trading cable, telecom materials, material cable for civil electricity, television cable and other cable products.

Recently, the company expanded its operation sphere to real estate sector via investing 10 billion dong in the Nhon Trach-Sacomland residential project, another 10 billion in Resort Da Lat project and 35 billion dong in Areco project in the southern province of Binh Duong.

Last year, CSG posted 549.1 billion dong in net revenue from sales and services provision, up 253% or 393.9 billion dong on 2006, 20.25 billion dong from after tax profit, a year-on-year increase of 17.78% and EPS was 842 dong.

This year, the company targets to bring the figures to 750 billion dong and 40 billion dong respectively.

Fines re-jigged for securities breach

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Prime minister's office on May 5 announced amended ordinance of dealing with administrative violation. Accordingly, the maximum punishment on violations relating to securities, environmental protection, construction, land, banking, intellectual property, petroleum exploration and development.

Under the amended ordinance, State Securities Commission's chief has the right to impose the punishment decision of 70 million dong at most on administrative violations in fields of securities while the SSC's chair also has the right to release the maximum punishment of up to 500 million dong.

Authorities have the right to apply an administrative punishment of 1-5% of total illegal money amount on issuers.

The ordinance will be enforced from August 1, 2008.

SCIC wavers on pumping funds into ailing stock market

Thursday, May 8, 2008
After the Tet holiday when the stock market saw a free fall, the State Capital Investment Corp (SCIC) announced that it would pump trillions of dong to purchase some share codes to save the stock market. Nearly two months from the announcement, the stock market to date has not rallied, even slumped deeper and longer. Investors said that the SCIC's announcement made a bull trap, which caused big losses for many investors especially individuals.
Information on purchase time, selected share codes and particular money amount spent on share purchase was kept in secret whereby investors wondered whether SCIC would use money to support the stock market like previous commitment or not.
One investor at Thang Long Securities Co's trading floor doubted that factually, SCIC has not purchased shares in as its announcement that is aimed to stabilise investors' psychology. To rescue the stock market, SCIC needs to spend about 5-15 trillion dong.
Since March, the stock market has an average trading value of about 500 billion dong each session. If SCIC's purchase is really implemented, the market trade and demand will absolutely increase considerably. Through the inventor's observation, there has had no change in market trade since March 10 when SCIC's announcement was released.
An individual broker explained, SCIC's securities purchase perhaps is implemented under the negotiated transaction method. If so, the price rescue will not be effective. In addition, the negotiated transaction value recently has not been efficient yet for investors to believe in SCIC's efforts.
According to an analyst, different from investors' misunderstanding, share buyback affects strongly to enterprises' profit�the most important factor impacting to share prices. Secondly, purchase and holding of the large share volume will make reduce Vietnamese capital market's transparency that inherently has tumbled sharply. Thirdly, SCIC's share buyback naturally is to move the capital from private to the state holding, which is contrast with the general equitisation trend of Vietnamese economy at the moment. Fourthly, the corporation's keeping of information on share purchase raised doubts that SCIC could only buy shares of enterprises with a good relationship. This affected to the prestige of the corporation. Fifthly, changes in share prices depend on both demand and supply law and investors' faith in the economic prospect in general and development of the stock market in particular. generally Vietnam's economy and the world's economy now have undergone the difficult period so Vietnamese stock market is affected by above disadvantages causing recent slumps. Therefore, the demand increase is only the short-term psychology solution, but it could not save the stock market absolutely.

Finally, Vietnam now is facing a serious inflation problem. The government needs to be cautious and prudential in pouring a huge money amount into the stock market or spending on solving inflation problem. Nguyen Van Quan, project director of Ba Dinh Real Estate JSC said that the government is right as selecting to save 80 million people instead of rescuing 300,000 securities accounts.

As stated by Le Thi Bang Tam, SCIC chair, the corporation naturally is not a fund in charge of regulating the stock market like investors' misunderstanding. SCIC is a special financial institution operating as a financial investment group in the market economy. The corporation has responsibility to ensure the state investment capital effectively. Additionally, SCIC aims to help enterprises improve administration model and help the stock market develop in long-term.

Moreover, according to Tam, SCIC's asset is very large but mainly is corporate shares with a limited volume of cash. Shares subject to offloading and repurchase plans are worth tens of trillions of dong. The public requirement that SCIC was proposed to spend money on purchasing all shares is impossible. It is supposed that if SCIC spends money on purchasing all shares of offloading and repurchase plan, the state will see a huge loss and suffer highly potential risks that investors should have suffered in line with the market's norms. (TBKTVN)

Do Thanh Technology Corp reports performance

Thursday, May 8, 2008
The listed firm on Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange, Do Thanh Technology Joint Stock Corp (coded DTT) reported that last year it reached over 4.1 billion dong in after-tax profit and a dividend of 7% in cash.
This year the corporation targets to gain 107 billion dong revenue and eight billion dong in after-tax profit.