VietNamNet Bridge – Who will be strategic shareholders of Vietnam Airlines Corporation (VNA) remains a secret though an initial public offering (IPO) of the biggest State-owned enterprise in the civil aviation sector has a few months to go.

VNA plans to launch the IPO some time this year as part of its equitization plan already approved by the Government. The corporation plans to sell 25% of its chartered capital to strategic and potential investors and leave the remainder held by the State.

The latest book value of VNA showed it was worth VND57.1 trillion (nearly US$2.744 billion) as of March 31 last year with the State ownership amounting to VND10.57 trillion (about US$508 million) in line with Decision 1807/QD-BGTVT signed by Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang.

Vietnam Airlines announced the valuation last month in preparation for its plan to go public later this year and to serve as one of the crucial factors for investors to decide to become strategic shareholders of the corporation.

However, the value of VNA as assessed by a foreign consortium was slightly lower, at less than US$2.74 billion, but the State capital was much higher at US$1.12 billion as of December 31 last year.

VNA is expected to sell shares to strategic partners in accordance with a method envisaged by Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. When the corporation picks strategic investors will depend much on its negotiations with potential investors.

Strategic shareholders can be a business group, an airline or a financial firm provided that a group of strategic investors should not have more than three members. The corporation will give priority to a corporation or an air carrier, VNA noted.

VNA will work out a set of selection criteria for strategic foreign investors based on direct negotiations or via tenders.

Initially, VNA plans to sell 20% of its chartered capital, equivalent to 282 million shares, with each share starting from around VND22,300.

SGT/VNN