The Vietnam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) is yet to finalize a date for listing its shares on the stock market.

Petrolimex has been preparing for listing in 2017. “We must list,” Chairman Bui Ngoc Bao told its 2016 Annual Shareholders’ Meeting on June 23.

It also plans to divest from the Pjico Insurance Corporation by selecting a foreign strategic investor to sell stocks to and the merger the Petrolimex Land Holdings JSC into the Petrolimex Concrete and Construction Co. Ltd will be completed shortly, he added.

Petrolimex executives also told at the meeting it will continue with plans to merge the Petrolimex Group Commercial Joint Stock Bank (PG Bank) into the Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (VietinBank). “This deal will be finished in 2016,” Mr. Bao said.

According to a report submitted to the meeting, Petrolimex sold more than 103.5 million shares to its strategic investor, the JX Nippon Oil & Energy Vietnam, at a price of VND39,017 (around $1.7) per share, increasing its charter capital to $517 million. These shares cannot be re-sold for five years.

JX Nippon Vietnam became the official shareholder of Petrolimex on May 28. The State’s shareholding accounts for more than 86 per cent, with JX Nippon Vietnam taking 9.09 per cent and the remainder belonging to other shareholders.

Petrolimex is gradually following its roadmap of reducing State capital to less than 75 per cent. At an extraordinary general meeting held in March it announced it would issue redeemable preference shares to shareholders representing 15 per cent of 2015 after-tax profits.

“Under the roadmap of reducing State-ownership to 75 per cent and then 65 per cent, the group will have new issuances before consulting with the governing agency and seeking shareholders’ opinions,” Mr. Bao said.

The group’s oil and petroleum output growth exceeded plan last year but revenue was only 96 per cent of that planned, at nearly $6.68 billion. Pre-tax profit was 53 per cent higher than the target, however, at around $170 million.

The dividend for 2015 is expected to be 15.9 per cent.

2016 targets are for nearly $6.1 billion in revenue, down 9 per cent compared to 2015, pre-tax profit of about $180 million, 30 per cent higher, and a minimum dividend of 8 per cent.