Inside PGBank's provincial office in the southern province of An Giang. The bank could finalise its merger with HDBank in June 2020. — Photo baoangiang.com.vn

The merger between PGBank and HDBank could complete in June 2020, according to petrol dealer Petrolimex deputy general director Luu Van Tuyen.

Petrolimex had developed the plan to exit its financial arm PGBank or Petrolimex Group Commercial Joint Stock Bank in 2015, Tuyen told reporters and analysts last week.

In 2015, Petrolimex and the Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (Vietinbank) signed an agreement that allowed the latter to acquire PGBank through a share-swap deal.

The deal collapsed on April 21, 2018. The same day, HCM City Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank (HDBank) approved the merger with PGBank and the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) then agreed with the basic principles of the deal.

The two sides were still waiting for the central bank’s final decision, Tuyen added.

In the January-September period, PGBank posted a 53.5 per cent annual increase in its pre-tax profit, which reached VND164 billion (US$7 million), the deputy general director said.

The largest petrol retailer by market capitalisation has a 40 per cent stake in PGBank and it is also the biggest shareholder, the bank said on its website.

Future moves

Petrolimex is looking for potential investors as it seeks to move away from some other member companies.

In 2017, insurance arm PJICo issued 17.74 million shares to Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance Co Ltd. The South Korean insurer then held 20 per cent of PJICo.

Petrolimex is planning to cut its stake in PJICo to 20-35 per cent from current 40.95 per cent.

In addition, the firm is on the way to cutting the State ownership to below 51 per cent from current 75 per cent. Meanwhile, its proposal to raise foreign capital bar to 49 per cent from previous 20 per cent is pending for the Prime Minister’s approval.

The company also wants to sell its entire 103 million treasury shares, equal to 8 per cent of the charter capital, to improve the free-float ratio for the stock. Current free-float ratio is 6.63 per cent of the charter capital.

Petrolimex is listing more than 1.29 billion shares on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange with code PLX.

In the third quarter of the year, Petrolimex recorded VND48.64 trillion ($2.1 billion) worth of net revenue, slightly up 5 per cent on-year. Its post-tax profit rose a quarter to VND1.11 trillion.

After nine months, the group reported its total net revenue dropped slightly on-year to VND140.3 trillion while total post-tax profit increased by 14 per cent year on year to VND3.64 trillion.

Tuyen said he was confident Petrolimex would meet the full-year earnings targets set for 2019, which are VND195 trillion in total net revenue and VND5.25 trillion in total pre-tax profit. — VNS

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