Foreign investors buy 75 million BHI shares

Foreign investors bought 75 million BHI shares of Saigon - Hanoi Insurance Corporation through many negotiated orders in the first 15 minutes of the session on February 19.

In the first trading session of the week, foreign investors executed 21 negotiated orders with prices ranging from VND21,700 to VND21,900 to buy a total of 75 million BHI shares. The total value of these transactions was VND1,628 billion, accounting for 92% of the total negotiated value on the UPCoM market. This is the session with the largest transaction value since BHI officially traded on the UPCoM market in mid-July 2023.

BHI closed the trading session on February 19 at VND23,900, up 15% from the reference price. This is the strongest increase of this stock since the beginning of the year. However, the liquidity of matched orders was not much different from the previous sessions, reaching only 5,238 shares. Based on the current price, BHI's market capitalization is approximately VND2,400 billion.

Previously, in June 2023, a group of shareholders of Saigon - Hanoi Insurance Corporation signed a contract to transfer 75% of shares (equivalent to 75 million shares) to DB Insurance. This group of shareholders includes 2 major shareholders, Saigon - Hanoi Securities Joint Stock Company (holding 9.98 million shares) and International Financial Investment and Consulting Joint Stock Company (holding 9.83 million shares) along with 19 other individuals. In early February 2024, the 2 major shareholders mentioned above registered to sell all shares they were holding at BHI for the purpose of "recovering investment capital". Therefore, the transaction in the session of February 19 is likely to be a transfer deal between this group of shareholders and DB Insurance.

DB Insurance Co., Ltd. is one of the leading non-life insurance companies in Korea. DB Insurance marked its entry into the Vietnamese insurance market in 2015 through investing in a domestic insurance company. With a domestic customer base, scale and existing relationships in Korea, DB Insurance is expected to bring new opportunities to BHI and other insurance companies that DB Insurance invests in Vietnam, including the ability to access a large customer base from this potential country.

In early February, BHI also witnessed a major shareholder change. Specifically, the Vegetable and Agricultural Products Corporation - Joint Stock Company (Vegetexco) announced that it had completed the purchase of 10.1 million shares from T&T Group to increase its ownership ratio from 0% to 10.1% and become a major shareholder.

BHI, formerly known as SHB – Vinacomin Insurance Joint Stock Company, was established in late 2008 and became a public company 2 years later. This enterprise operates mainly in the field of non-life insurance with current charter capital of 1,000 billion VND. The company has 6 founding shareholders, but to date only 3 of them own shares, including T&T Group, Saigon – Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) and Hoa Son Joint Stock Company.

Last year, BHI recorded net revenue from insurance business activities of VND2,595 billion, down 5% compared to the same period. Insurance activities suffered a gross loss due to the decrease in revenue, which was not enough to offset compensation costs and other expenses. However, thanks to profits from securities trading activities, the company still had a profit after tax of VND29 billion.

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