One percent Vinamilk stake out of reach for Singaporean investors

By Dat Nguyen November 19, 2019 | 01:00 am PT

Vinamilk products seen in a factory in southern Binh Duong Province. Photo by VnExpres/Quynh Tran.

Two Singaporean investors in Vinamilk have failed repeatedly to increase their stake in the dairy giant by one percent.

In the latest instance, investment firm Platinum Victory has once again failed to increase its stake, Vinamilk said Monday.

The Singapore-based company has been unable to increase its stake from 10.62 percent to 11.62 percent as of November 15 "due to unfavorable market conditions," the Vinamilk statement said.

Platinum Victory, a unit of Singapore’s leading diversified conglomerate Jardine Cycle & Carriage, has immediately registered again to buy the 1 percent stake between November 21 and December 20, Vinamilk added.

Since early last year, another Singapore-based company, F&N Dairy Investments, which is the largest foreign investor in Vinamilk at 17.31 percent, has also been unsuccessful in repeated attempts to raise its stake by one percent.

Vinamilk is among the largest listed companies in the country with a market cap of VND208.96 trillion ($9 billion). From January to September, the company’s after-tax profit rose 5.8 percent year-on-year to VND7.92 trillion ($341.5 million). The state is its largest stakeholder at 36 percent.

Platinum Victory had last month proposed to spend $60 million on increasing its stake in Vietnam’s industrial appliance maker REE from 24.9 percent to 35.01 percent.