One of the highest-calibre investors hails from Europe.
Nguyen Van Le, general director of SHB, told Vnexpress that ever since SHB published establishing SHB Finance, numerous foreign investors from Europe, the US, and Japan proposed to buy shares. SHB is considering choosing a European firm as strategic investor.
“We have specific criteria on choosing a strategic investor. Notably, along the necessary financial potential, candidates must have knowledge and experience in the retail sector and must have achieved successes in countries of a similar character as the Asian market,” Le added.
Some days ago, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) officially approved the merger of VVF into SHB. The merger is expected to be completed early next year.
Accordingly, SHB will take over all the assets and liabilities of VVF. Within 45 working days of the decision taking effect (January 12, 2017), SHB must complete procedures for business registration and disclose information as required by the prevailing rules.
VVF is required to hand over all of its assets and liabilities to SHB and return its establishment and operation licenses to the SBV.
SHB Finance will have a chartered capital of VND1 trillion ($43.99 million). According to the plan, at the beginning, SHB Finance will provide consumer credit services for customers with an income between VND150-200 million ($6,599-8,799) per year. In the mid- and long-term, the company will expand services to customers with stable, but less than VND150 million ($6,599) income.
According to the SBV, 16 financial companies have been operating in Vietnam at the end of last year.
Increasing mergers and acquisitions deals are expected to support the consumer finance market, which holds huge growth potential.
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