Navibank plans to list 100 million shares in Hanoi

News/Hanoi - Nam Viet Commercial Joint-Stock Bank, the Vietnamese lender known as Navibank, plans to list 100 million shares on the Hanoi Stock Exchange as early as next month, Chairman Nguyen Vinh Tho said.

Navibank had planned to list shares on the Hanoi bourse in late June, Dau Tu Chung Khoan magazine reported April 16, citing Chief Executive Officer Le Quang Tri. The Ho Chi Minh City-based lender traded as high as VND11,000 Monday in the over-the-counter market, according to FPT Securities Joint-Stock Co.

The Southeast Asian nation’s benchmark VN Index declined 1.5 percent today to 447.92, the lowest since Dec.18. It has dropped 9.3 percent this month, the worst performance among 93 benchmarks tracked by Bloomberg.

“The outlook for the Vietnamese stock market is more positive for September than this month because earnings of listed companies in the third quarter are expected to be better,” Tho said Monday in a telephone interview.

Navibank forecasts pretax profit will double this year to VND400 billion ($20.5 million), according to Tho. Total assets may rise to VND30 trillion from more than VND19 trillion last year, he said.