On the afternoon of March 27, Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank ( VPBank ) announced that it had reached an agreement to sell 15% of its shares to Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) - a member of Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc (SMFG) through a private placement of shares. This agreement officially makes SMBC Group a strategic investor of VPBank .
The investment from SMBC will provide VPBank with VND35,900 billion in Tier 1 capital, raising the bank's total equity to approximately VND140,000 billion.
According to VPBank, this investment agreement is part of the capital increase plan that the bank has been implementing since 2022 to enhance long-term financial capacity and help the bank achieve its strategic growth goals in the next 5 years.
Mr. Ngo Chi Dung, Chairman of the Board of Directors of VPBank and Mr. Masahiro Yoshimura, Executive Director, General Director of Investment Management, SMBC Bank signed the agreement.
VPBank's announcement did not disclose the value of the deal. However, Bloomberg previously cited a close source confirming that VPBank would sell more than 1 billion shares to SMBC at VND32,000 - 33,000 per share. The agreement is expected to be signed at the end of this month. Thus, if this deal is successful, VPBank will earn about USD1.35 - 1.4 billion.
This is not the first time the Japanese financial group has invested in VPBank. At the end of 2021, SMBC Consumer Finance Company - a subsidiary of SMFG - also acquired a 49% stake in FE Credit Finance Company, a subsidiary of VPBank.
With this strategic investment from SMBC, VPBank will become the second largest bank by equity in Vietnam. The large capital base also allows VPBank to have enough financial capacity to serve very large-scale corporate customers, especially FDI enterprises and multinational corporations that are investing and will invest in Vietnam.
Regarding VPBank's shares, in the trading session on March 27, VPB shares of this bank were traded at 21,300 VND/share, increasing from 17,000 VND/share in just the past 2 weeks.
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