Thanh Cong apparel firm to issue 1tr dong of convertible bonds

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Thanh Cong Garment and Textile Joint Stock Co recently announced that it plans to issue one trillion dong of convertible bonds separately to mobilise investment capital for its realty projects from 2008 to 2010 with the total volume of 10 million three-year bonds and the coupon rate of 12% per annum.
The convertible rate in the first year will be 1:3 or one bond will be converted into three ordinary shares, the rate will be 1:2 in the second year and 1:1 in the third year.
These bonds will be issued to both domestic and foreign individual and institution investors.
Creditors owning from 15,000 convertible bonds and higher will receive preferential rights in buying apartments in the company's realty projects.

Truong Hai Automobile targets 2008 dividend of 45%

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Truong Hai Automobile Joint Stock Co's shareholders' meeting recently passed the business plan this year with over 6.98 trillion dong in revenue, 554.411 billion dong from after tax profit and planed to pay 2008 dividend of 45%.
The shareholders' meeting also reported business result last year with 2.692 trillion dong in revenue, 244.82 billion dong from after tax profit and EPS was 4,780 dong per share.
The company would pay dividend of 19% in cash and 12% in shares for the second phase of 2007.
This year, Truong Hai Co plans to invest in large-scaled automobile installing and manufacturing complex in Chu Lai open economic zone and develop spare part manufacturing mills and showroom system.

SMC posts over 20b dong profit in Q1

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
The listed firm on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, SMC Trade and Investment Joint Stock Co (coded SMC) recently reported the business result in the first quarter of this year with 1.007 trillion dong in revenue and 20.1 billion dong in profit, equalling to 40% of the whole year's target.
The company's business result in the first quarter of this year increased 89.6% in comparison with the same period of last year.
Notably, in April, the SMC signed two contracts to distribute 13,000 tonnes of steel for Taiwan-based Bao Gia Joint Stock Co's Bao Gia office building and another 9,000 tonnes for the first phase of Korea-based GS Engineering & Construction Corp's XI RiverView Palace apartment project in HCM City.

LienViet Bank signs two strategic partnership agreements

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Lien Viet Commercial Joint Stock Bank (LienViet Bank) recently announced that on May 3 it inaugurated its branch in the southern province of Hau Giang and signed strategic cooperation agreements with two domestic big partners namely Dong Thap Petroleum Trading Co (Petimex) and Agriculture Bank Insurance Joint Stock Corp (ABIC).
Accordingly, LienViet Bank will take full advantage of petroleum, hotel and seaport service sectors of Petimex. Conversely, Petimex will use LienViet Bank's banking and financial services.
As for ABIC, the two signatories pledged to use services of each other. Of which, ABIC pledged to open principal accounts and carry out payment activities frequently via Lienviet Bank.

Bank shares lose lustre on capital raising drives

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
With the plans to increase by two or three times in chartered capital, most banks decide to offer preferential shares to employees with an aim to hold qualified workforce. Compared with the previous year, the preferential volume of bank shares for employees now seems to be more superfluous. However, due to the less attractiveness of bank shares, many employees are not too much keen on their bank shares though with very preferential prices.
Among 458 million ordinary shares with par value of 10,000 dong that Eximbank plans to issue to raise the chartered capital from 2.8 trillion dong to 7.38 trillion dong within this year, the bank will sell 12 million shares to employees with the price of no less than the face value. According to Eximbank, the share issue aims to set up a share fund for the policy of attracting qualified human resources called "Human Resources Development Fund" that will be maintained until 2010.
Similarly, in line with the approved plan, Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) will offer 2.5 million bonus shares among forthcoming 372.57 million shares at 10,000 dong par to its employees. This is a part of the bank's plan to hike the chartered capital from the current 2.63 trillion dong to 6.355 trillion dong in 2008. As estimated, about 2,500 employees are allowed to join the share offering under ACB's bonus share regulation.

Meanwhile, in the plan to increase the chartered capital up to 6.048 trillion dong from 4.449 trillion dong at the moment, Sacombank will issue three million shares worth 30 billion dong on par to its key employees with the selling price of 15,000 dong per share. Yet, the employees must pledge to hold preferential shares and derivative rights within three-years from the issue date.

For HCM City Housing Development Bank (HDBank), as a part of the plan to hike the chartered capital from one trillion dong to two trillion dong in this year, five million shares worth 50 billion dong on par enclosed with preferential interests will be offered to employees with the issue price of 10,000 dong per share equalling to the par value of the bank share. But, buyers are only members of director board, supervision board and management board of the bank. Additionally, the buyers must commit to hold these preferential shares within six months and derivative rights from the bank gains authorities' approval on capital increase. Also, Pacific Bank will offer 60,000 shares [accounting for 3% of the share volume in the plan to reach a chartered capital of two trillion dong] to its employees.

Factually, not all employees are enthusiastic with bonus shares or preferential shares of banks in forthcoming capital increases. Two-years ago when bank shares were still considered "king shares" in terms of attractiveness, a lot of employees expected to buy banks' bonus or preferential shares even at that time, issue price was higher 4-5 times over par. But currently, the selling price that equals to 1-1.1 times over par still does not satisfy employees because of the stock market slump. In fact, prices of bank shares were down 70-80% sharply as compared with the same period of 2006. Typically, the STB coded share price of Sacombank in April ever stood at only over 30,000 dong each while the bank announced to sell shares to employees at the price of 15,000 dong. Therefore, at present, the issue of preferential shares to increase chartered capital is unlikely an investment opportunity for employees, even it can become the challenge for many banks' leaders.

Song Da 909 subsidiary to pay dividend in shares

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Song Da 909 Joint Stock Co (coded S99) recently announced that it would hike chartered capital via paying 2007 dividend in shares and offering more bonus shares to the existing shareholders.
In particular, the registration deadline for the company to close the list of shareholders book to is on May 16 so as to offer 1,473,970 shares to the existing shareholders at the ratio of one new share for one share held.
Of which, the company plans to pay 96% dividend in shares with the total volume of 1,415,011 shares and offer more 4% or 58,959 bonus shares.

Song Da 909 subsidiary to pay dividend in shares

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Song Da 909 Joint Stock Co (coded S99) recently announced that it would hike chartered capital via paying 2007 dividend in shares and offering more bonus shares to the existing shareholders.
In particular, the registration deadline for the company to close the list of shareholders book to is on May 16 so as to offer 1,473,970 shares to the existing shareholders at the ratio of one new share for one share held.
Of which, the company plans to pay 96% dividend in shares with the total volume of 1,415,011 shares and offer more 4% or 58,959 bonus shares.

May 05, Foreigners Net Buyers Of VND44.3 Billion Of Shares

Monday, May 5, 2008
Foreign investors were net buyers of VND44.3 billion ($ 2.77 million) of Vietnamese stocks Monday out of a total VND227.4 billion traded, the Ho Chi Minh Securities Trading Center said.
Volume was 4.8 million shares, with foreigners accounting for 24.4% of the total, the stock market operator said. (Dow Jones)

Regulators ban new stock brokerages, fund managers

Monday, May 5, 2008
Viet Nam has too many stock brokerages according to SJC Securities Joint Stock Co general director Huynh Anh Tuan.
"With the current small size of the stock market, the number of existing securities companies is too much," said Tuan.
"In recent months, the number of newly-founded securities firms has been higher than the number of new listings on the bourse," he said.
Eighty-seven brokerage houses currently operate nationwide, giving Viet Nam a much higher proportion of brokerages than other nations in the region.
According to figures from the Economic Committee of the National Assembly, China now has 107 securities firms, Malaysia 37, Thailand 31, Singapore 27 and South Korea 50.
Meanwhile, the applications of dozens more firms are pending at the State Securities Commission.
As a consequence, the commission suspended the acceptance of further applications on April 28, including requests to form new fund management companies.

The interim move was intended to improve the service quality and effectiveness of existing brokerage houses and fund management firms.

Some have argued that the rule was anti-competitive and that the entry of new brokerages onto the market, and the resulting competition, would generate better services.

Many have also questioned the ban on new fund management companies. Fund management companies are professional investment institutions which pool the capital of individuals to invest in securities. Most market watchers believe it is a type of professional institution that should be encouraged, not stymied.

There is wider support in the industry for the ban on new stock brokerages, however, as many have been set up merely as vehicles for companies to trade securities on their own behalf. The end result, however, has been than many brokerage houses are facing bankruptcy now that the stock market has dropped.

Not only have these firms lost money on their own investments, their income from trading fees has also slowed to a trickle. Tighter daily trading bands on the nation’s stock exchanges has slowed trading volumes, but membership fees that securities companies pay to both the HCM City and Ha Noi exchanges have remained as high as before.

Meanwhile, fixed operating costs of these securities firms, including rents and wages, continue to rise. Some analysts expect a wave of mergers among securities firms over the next year as many struggle to survive. (VNS)

May 05, Stock market sees slight decline in first trading session in May

Monday, May 5, 2008
After a long holiday, the domestic stock market dropped on the first trading session in May today with the market indicators as well as trading volumes and values on both bourses dropping and a majority of listed stocks suffering losses.

Ending the third order matching phase today, the VN-Index today lost 1.08 points (0.2%) to close at 521.88 though it managed to gain slightly in the first two matching phases with only over 4.8 million matched for more than VND 227 billion, plus 1.4 million other units traded through negotiations worth VND over 90 billion.

Up to 98 stocks listed saw falls while only 43 gained, eight others maintained their reference prices and five had no trading at all.

The five top gainers included three pharmaceutical companies, DHG, DMC and IMP. The other two were KDC and VNM. DHG increased by VND 3,000 a share while the other four stocks were up by VND 2,000 a unit each.

Other large-cap stocks that gained included PVD, HPG, ITA, PPC and VPL while STB, SSI, FPT, VIC and DPM were losers.

STB lost 600 dong to 32,900 dong, SSI slipped 900 to 48,100 dong, FPT dropped 1,500 dong to 79,500 dong, DPM lost 1,000 to 52,500 and VIC down 1,500 to 92,000 dong per share.

STB took the pole place in trading volume with 661,830 shares and followed by DPM with 536,630, PPC with 244,730, HPG with 227,270, VNM with 208,760 and VSH, VTO, FPT and SSI.

Foreign investors bought 68 share codes with the total volume of over 1.1 million shares. Of which, DPM reached the biggest trading volume with 174,550 shares, PPC with 147,410, VNM with 146,960, VSH with 104,850 and others with below 100,000 shares.

Conversely, the Hanoi Securities Trading Center (HaSTC) today May5 kept decreasing impetus on the stock market as the HaSTC Index lost another 2.06 points or 1.22% to end at 167.05 pts with the total market trade of 1,878,600 shares worth over 76 billion dong.

Amongst 135 listed shares on the northern bourse, the stock market saw 17 shares increasing while 102 others decreasing, two shares stood still and 14 shares with no trade.

Two shares remained unchanged including DBC and DTC.
14 shares with no trade were B82, BTH, C92, CID, HSC, HUT, KMF, L62, NGC, NPS, S12, TJC, TPH and YSC.

17 shares increasing included BHV up 800 dong or 2.79%, CTB +500, DAC, LTC, MEC and VFR +300, HJS and HNM +400, KBC, PSC, STC and VNR +100, LBE +200, LUT and NVC +700, MIC +2.800 and VSP jumped 1,400 dong per share.

Meanwhile, S99 showed the biggest decrease when losing 2,400 dong and followed by ACB lost 2,300 dong, BVS dropped 2,100, NBC slipped 1,700, VDL plunged 1,600, RCL, SCJ and SD2 slashed 1,500 dong and SD7 and SDA tumbled 1,400 dong per share.

ACB reached the biggest trading volume with 232,500 shares and followed by PVS with 161,500 shares, NVC with 123,500, PVI with 123,000, DBC with 118,700, HNM with 114,600 and others with below 100,000 shares.