Viettel Holds 19% Stake in Military Bank

That Viettel raised its holding in MBB is expected to bring benefits to both parties. Specifically, Viettel and MBB can exploit each other’s broad customer base. Besides, Viettel can support the lender to upgrade its payment, phone banking and e-banking systems and MBB can take advantage of Viettel’s dominant market share in Laos and Cambodia to expand its operation abroad.

Vietnam Helicopter Corporation has recently sold its all 52,882,207 new share purchase rights. The rights sale came out after the government and the Ministry of National Defense restricted the firm to increase its holding in MBB.

In 2012, Military Bank projects its pretax profit to jump 34% on year to VND3.5 trillion. The HOSE-listed lender targets a deposit growth of at least 17% and seeks to expand credits at maximum 17% as prescribed by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV).

The bank aims to curb bad debts below 2% of its total credits (excluding loans to Thang Long Securities Company) and targets to pay 2012 dividends at equivalent to VND1,500/share.

After the share issue to existing shareholders and private placement to Viettel, MBB expects its loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) to arrive at around 70% and its capital adequacy ratio (CAR) to reach 11% from 9.59% at the end of last year.

This year, MBB plans to open 80 new branches and transaction offices, mostly in the southern part of the country.