Finnish fund invests $626 mln in Vietnam bank stocks

In the first 11 months of this year, it has invested nearly a third of its total assets in VietinBank, HDBank, TPBank and Military Bank, according to the fund’s statement.

VietinBank’s CTG stock accounted for 9.66 percent of the fund’s asset portfolio, followed by HDBank’s HDB at 9.3 percent, TPBank’s TPB at 9.03 percent and MB’s MBB at 4.79 percent.

The rising prices of bank stocks in recent months have benefited the fund. PYN’s net asset value in November rose 11 percent, higher than VN-Index’s growth of 8.4 percent, thanks to the double-digit growth of TPB and CTG stocks.

The fund’s founder and portfolio manager, Petri Deryng, had said in August that banks play an important role in the Vietnamese stock market.

In recent years the fund’s key banking stocks have recorded annual profit growth of up to 30-40 percent, and this year, it expects a growth of 20 percent.

PYN Elite Fund, established in 1999, focused mostly on investing in Thailand before switching to Vietnam in 2013.