Danish BankInvest and Masan group considering listing shares abroad

Masan Group Corp., the food, banking and natural-resources company that’s the biggest stock in the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange, said it’s considering listing shares abroad.


Masan may sell shares by issuing new stock, depositary receipts, convertible bonds or securities that can be converted into shares in domestic or foreign markets through private placement or public offerings, the company said in a stock exchange statement.


“There is very little liquidity in the shares here,” said Hana Dang, a Ho Chi Minh City-based partner at BankInvest, a Danish asset manager which had a 10.6 percent stake in Masan at the end of 2010, according to Masan’s annual report. “If Masan can go abroad it would help the company and it would help investors.”


Masan has jumped 67 percent this year, compared with a 13 percent drop on the VN Index. The company didn’t specify the timing of any listing and declined further comment. The company’s market value was VND64.4 trillion ($3.1 billion) at Friday’s close, the largest among the 298 companies on the Ho Chi Minh City exchange.


The company is targeting a value of 5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product within three years, according to its latest annual report. The International Monetary Fund forecast in June that Vietnam’s GDP will be $118.6 billion at the end of 2011.


 

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