Government to sell at least 35 per cent of VNPT, MobiFone by 2020

January 14, 2017 | 18:02

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VNPT and MobiFone are in the list of the 240 state-owned companies to be restructured in the 2016-2020 period and among the 27 companies where the government is going to hold between 50 and 65 per cent.

According to Decision 58/2016/QD-TTg on the criteria to classify state-owned companies and the list of companies that will be restructured in 2016-2020, besides these two telecom services and network infrastructure providers, there are going to be five other companies in the telecom sector that are going to be equitised by 2020.

The companies include VTC Multimedia Corp., VTV Cab, TV Broadcom, Hanoi Movies Co., Ltd., and Saigon Cultural Products Corp. The government will only hold up to 50 per cent of these companies’ chartered capital.

Together, VNPT, MobiFone, and Viettel hold about 97 per cent of the Vietnamese mobile market and are all 100 per cent owned by the government. Mai Liem Truc, former Deputy Minister of Post and Telecommunications- the ministry has now changed its name to Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, said that the government should retain 100 per cent of Viettel, while falling to just over 51 per cent at other companies, such as VNPT and MobiFone. This percentage is compliant to Vietnam’s commitments when signing international economic agreements.

A source of VIR said that VNPT has proposed owning 20 per cent of MobiFone. This is compliant to the earlier agreement separating MobiFone from VNPT.

VNPT chairman Nguyen Manh Hung said that VNPT is building plans to equitise in 2016-2010.

MobiFone actually received the order to equitise in 2014 when it was separated from VNPT. At the beginning of 2016, MobiFone finished company valuation, but at the moment it is being investigated for the An Vien purchase, which may or may not affect its value. Only when the investigation is finished can MobiFone go ahead with the equitisation.

Foreign investors have shown a lot of interest in MobiFone. Suitors include Singtel, Telenor, Comvik, and Telstra.