HSBC, Barclays to advise VietinBank on overseas dollar bond sale

HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and Barclays Bank Plc will advise Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry & Trade on its planned $500 million overseas bond sale, said Deputy General Director Le Duc Tho.


The banks will also jointly arrange the sale for VietinBank, as the country’s second-largest listed lender is known, Tho said in a text message from Hanoi today.

It would be the second international offering of U.S. dollar bonds by a Vietnamese corporate borrower this year, after Vincom Joint-Stock Co. sold $40 million of 6 percent convertible notes in July, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Any offering would test investor confidence in the country, which has struggled to damp Asia’s fastest inflation as its currency slid to the worst-performing in the region this year.

“VietinBank has made a good choice of advisers,” said Alan Pham, chief economist at VinaCapital Investment Management Ltd. HSBC has a depth of expertise and wide distribution network globally that will help get the Hanoi-based bank a “good rate,” he said.

VietinBank has sought approval from the country’s central bank to sell $500 million of bonds overseas later this year, Tho said last month. It would be the bank’s first sale of U.S. dollar-denominated notes, Bloomberg data show.

Shares of the company dropped 2.2 percent to 26,400 dong at the 11 a.m. local-time close on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange today. The lender has advanced 15 percent this year, outpacing the 4.5 percent decline in the benchmark VN Index.

Inflation accelerated to 23 percent last month, the highest rate among 17 Asian economies tracked by Bloomberg. Gross domestic product in Vietnam expanded 5.6 percent in the first six months of the year, lower than a revised 6.2 percent in the first half of 2010. (Bloomberg)