Vietnam's fourth-largest lender by assets, state-run Vietinbank, raised $64 million by selling a 4 percent stake in an initial public offering, the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange said in a statement on Friday. Vietinbank sold 53.6 million shares at an average price of 20,265 dong ($1.2) each at an auction held on Thursday, or about 1.3 percent above its starting price of 20,000 dong.
Vietinbank, or Vietnam Bank for Industry and Trade, along with three other state-run commercial banks plus Vietcombank, the country's largest partly private lender, commands more than 70 percent of lending in Vietnam.
The Hanoi-based bank forecast earlier this month its net profit to nearly double next year to 2.2 trillion dong (133 million) as its total assets grow 25.6 percent to 263.48 trillion dong at the end of 2009. Vietinbank has projected net profit this year to rise 7.8 percent to 1.24 trillion dong, according to the prospectus for the bank's initial public offering.