The Vietnamese bank will sell over 1 billion shares to SMBC Consumer Finance Co. under Sumitomo Mitsui, for VND32,000-$33,000 ($1.3-$1.4) per share, Bloomberg reported Saturday citing people familiar with the potential deal.
VPBank is among the seven biggest Vietnamese banks in terms of pre-tax profit in 2022, including Vietcombank, Techcombank, BIDV, MB, VietinBank and Agribank. Each bank recorded more than VND20 trillion in profits last year.
VPBank’s pre-tax profit surged 48% over 2021 to VND21.22 trillion.
Sumitomo Mitsui, Japan’s second-largest banking group, is seeking to capture growth in Asian emerging markets through acquisitions, spurred by limited business opportunities at home, ultra-low interest rates and an aging population, Reuters reported.
Sumitomo Mitsui said last November it would buy an additional 15% of the Philippines’ Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.