Australia Macquarie Bank returns as Yeah1’s major shareholder

Australia-based Macquarie Bank returned as a major shareholder of Vietnamese entertainment group Yeah1 after purchasing an additional 31,190 shares, announced the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HSX) on September 20. 

After concluding the transaction, Macquarie Bank increased its shareholding at Yeah 1 from 1.55 million shares or 4.96% to 1.58 million shares or 5.06%. 



On August 21, the Australian bank offloaded 88,150 shares of Yeah1 in a move to reduce its ownership proportion of shares below 5%. 



With the price of VND219,000 (US$9.06) apiece at the time of transaction, Macquarie Bank had to spend VND6.8 billion (US$293,400) to become Yeah1’s major shareholder. 



Yeah1 has two other major shareholders in the names of Ancla Asset Limited with 3.4 million shares, equivalent to a 12.49% stake, and DFJ VinaCapital Venture Investment Ltd with over 1.95 million shares or a 7.14% stake.



The firm also has two individual major shareholders namely Nguyen Anh Nhuong Tong, its chairman, and CEO Dao Phuc Tri. 



Yeah1 debuted its shares on HoSE on June 26 at the reference price of VND250,000 ($11). At the close of the first trading day, Yeah1’s shares rose to VND300,000 ($13.18) apiece, a record in the local stock market, raising the market capitalization of this entertainment business to VND8.28trillion ($383 million). 



Established in September 2006, the entertainment group runs a series of entertainment channels including Yeah1TV, Yeah1family, Imovietv and SCTV2, with nine subsidiaries and four indirect subsidiaries including Yeah1 Vietnam Co., Netlink Online Corporation and TNT Media Advertising. 



Yeah1 is currently the largest multi-channel network in Asia and the 6th largest in the world by monthly views, it claims. The group is also the only certified publishing partner of Google, which has full rights to publish Google content in Southeast Asia.



In 2017, Yeah1 recorded VND851 billion (US$37.5 million) in revenue, up 48% year on year. The company posted after-tax profit of VND82.3 billion (US$3.63 million), five times the figure posted in 2016.



The group set a revenue target of VND1.6 trillion (US$70.64 million) in 2018, up 90% year-on-year and a profit of VND172 billion (US$7.6 million), up 109% year-on-year.