Vietjet looks set to raise $170m from IPO

The share price would be 84,600 dong for institutional investors and 86,500 dong for individual investors. The IPO would value the firm at $1.2 billion.
The number of shares bid by buyers have exceeded that of shares offered by Vietjet at the IPO, Reuters reported, but the airline will not increase the number of shares sold at the IPO.
The IPO of Vietjet is coordinated by some domestic and international financial institutions such as BNP Paribas, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and VietCapital Securities.
Vietjet shares are expected to start trading at 88,800 dong on their debut on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange in February.
Vietjet declined to comment on the deal.
The IPO proceeds are expected to help the company expand its operations in some domestic airports and expand its routes.
Vietjet is expected to increase domestic routes from 36 to 45 by 2019 and international routes from 19 to 36 by 2018.
Last year, Vietjet received 19.84 trillion dong in combined revenue and 1.17 trillion dong in net profit, up 128 per cent and 225 per cent. In the first half of this year, the firm’s revenue rose 41 per cent to 12.55 trillion dong and its net profit gained two-thirds to 1.23 trillion dong.
At the end of September, Vietjet recorded an increase of 40 per cent in revenue and 70 per cent in net profit on 54-per-cent growth of its flight numbers. |– Viet Nam News

PM urges local authorities
to dialogue with business
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc urged local-level authorities in the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) province of Gia Lai to strive to become governments of dialogue, working together with businesses and ready to share failures and successes with them.
In front of 400 attendees at an investment promotion conference in the province early this week, Phuc pointed to the potential for investment, as well as shortcomings in the province.
Among the advantages were many industrial parks and economic zones, organic agriculture, the processing industry, well-known brand names and high technology. But the local economic scale was still small and its processing industry does not match its large potential because its brands have not been developed on the international market.
Planning and developing water resources in the central highlands was crucial, as was preserving and developing forest and reservoirs.
The government would further develop infrastructure in the central highlands in general, and in Gia Lai in particular, to create favourable conditions for business development, he said.
Vo Ngoc Thanh, chairman of the Gia Lai People’s Committee, said the province expected to reach 7.52-per-cent GDP growth next year and exports of US$450 million, 12.5 per cent higher than this year. – Viet Nam News