Domestic, foreign investors compete to invest in ACV

Noi Bai airport — Photo vietq.vn

Imex Pan Pacific Co Ltd (IPP) recently expressed its hope to be a strategic investor of the ACV with a volume of 5 per cent of the corporation's registered capital.

IPP, an official sole supplier of 60 famous brand names of the world in Viet Nam, has met success with non-airlines services at Manila Airport in the Philippines, Noi Bai, Tan Son Nhat, Cam Ranh and Phu Quoc airports.

IPP is one of many domestic and foreign investors expected to own such a hot share of ACV, which requires a financial institution to have an ownership capital of no less than $5 billion on December 31, 2014; it does not witness a cumulative loss, and it has earned a profit of at least 5 per cent of its revenue the previous year.

To get a chance, Bank for Investment and Development (BIDV) Chairman Tran Bac Ha has recently requested Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung for revision of norms on strategic shareholders of the ACV.

In a document sent to the PM after the bank asked for five per cent of the shares after the ACV's initial public offering on December 10, Ha said if the norms were not changed, the BIDV would not be able to meet the demand for involvement in the ACV's operations.

Ha said in the document that such a regulation ended opportunities for domestic financial institutions, but helped foreign ones as they would not have to compete with the country's banks during the process of selecting the strategic shareholders of the ACV.

No domestic bank has been able to meet the $5 billion ownership capital demand so far. The two commercial banks with the largest ownership capitals in Viet Nam were Vietinbank and BIDV, with $2.55 billion and $1.85 billion, respectively, the document said.

The foreign competitors of BIDV and IPP are French Aeroport de Paris (ADP) and two giant investors from Japan including Taisei and JATCO, according to investment online newspaper baodautu.vn.

According to regulations of the transport ministry, in case the investor is an alliance (comprises three companies maximum), at least one of them manages terminals.

In the equitisation plan, the ACV will offer more than 448 million shares, or 20 per cent of its registered capital, to strategic investors, five per cent is offered to its employees and normal investors while about 75 per cent will be owned by the state.

In its initial public offering on the HCM Stock Exchange on December 10, the ACV offloaded 77.8 million shares at VND14,300 ($0.63) each, which was 3.47 per cent of the company's registered capital, equal to more than VND1.1 trillion ($48.9 million)./.

Source: VNS