Maritime Bank listing rejected

Vietnam Maritime Co妹妹ercial Joint Stock Bank (Maritime Bank) has failed to get approval from shareholders to trade its shares on the stock exchanges.— Photo plo.vn

HÀ NỘI — Vietnam Maritime Co妹妹ercial Joint Stock Bank (Maritime Bank) has failed to get approval from shareholders to trade its shares on the stock exchanges.

At the bank’s annual shareholder meeting held on Friday,  九 七 per cent of shareholders disapproved of the proposal put forward by the bank’s board to list shares on one of the three major stock exchanges.

The three exchanges in question are the HCM Stock Exchange (HoSE), Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX) and Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM).

The bank submitted its application for share listing to the Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD) in January  二0 一 七 and had to provide additional documents to comply with VSD requirements. Maritime Bank reapplied to VSD in early April.

Shares of Maritime Bank have been traded on the Over-The-Counter (OTC) market since June  二 六,  二00 九 under code MSB. The bank’s share price has fallen from a starting level of VNĐ 一 九, 二00 ( 八 五 US cents) per share to around VNĐ 四,000 per share.

According to the bank’s management board, the price of bank shares has remained low due to the downward trend of the economy in general and the banking sector in particular.

In  二0 一 七, Maritime Bank targets to increase its total assets, mobilised capital and lending by  一 五 per cent,  一 七 per cent and  一 四 per cent to VNĐ 一0 六. 六 trillion (US$ 四. 七 四 billion), VNĐ 七 二. 三 trillion and VNĐ 五 一. 七 五 trillion, respectively.

The bank also plans to raise its pre-tax profit slightly to VNĐ 一 六 五 billion from last year’s figure of VNĐ 一 六 四 billion. Maritime Bank plans to make dividend payouts at a rate of  五 per cent for  二0 一 七 and zero for  二0 一 六.

Trần Xuân Quảng, vice chairman of the bank’s standing management board, said at the meeting that Maritime Bank would continue provisioning its bad debts in order to make sure the bank’s operations are secure.

Maritime Bank expects its pre-provision profit for  二0 一 七 will reach VNĐ 二. 二 trillion and it projects to handle VNĐ 七 trillion worth of bad debts and maintain a bad debt ratio of below  三 per cent by the end of  二0 一 七. — VNS