Negotiations continue for Vietnam airports group share sale
The Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) and France’s airport authority Aéroports de Paris (ADP) are still in negotiations on the sale of ACV shares.
The contract will be completed in the coming months before ACV carries out a plan to transfer its shares from the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange by the end of this year, he said.
This information was also confirmed by ADP chairman-cum-director general Augustin de Romanet at a working session with Vietnamese Minister of Transport Truong Quang Nghia earlier this month.
He noted that both sides have basically agreed on important contents of the contract and cooperation plans in the future.
ADP is one of the biggest airport authorities in Europe. At the end of 2015, the group made contact with ACV for negotiations to become a strategic shareholder.
With the proposal to buy shares at ACV, the French group plans to gain a firm foothold in Vietnam – one of the fastest-growing aviation markets in the world.
On December 10, 2015, ACV conducted an auction to sell 77.8 million shares at the starting price of VND11,800 per share (51 US cents) in its initial public offering (IPO) on the HCM Stock Exchange.
At the first ACV shareholders’ meeting in March 2016, investors agreed to sell nearly 7.4 percent of AVC shares to the French group at the price of at least VND13,100 per share (57 US cents).
According to a business report, ACV recorded total revenues of VND12 trillion (US$564 million) and pre-tax profits of VND2.7 trillion (US$122 million) in the last three quarters of 2016.
Also in 2016, ACV served nearly 81 million passenger-times, a year-on-year rise of 28 percent, while handling over 1 million tonne of cargos, a yearly increase of 12 percent.
In 2017, ACV hopes to serve 91 million passenger-times, up 9 percent from the previous year, and targets to increase its annual revenues and pre-tax profits by 8 percent and 3 percent respectively from 2017-2020.