Vietnam’s MB Bank to sell 49% of Cambodia Unit to Shinsei

(Bloomberg) -- Vietnam’s Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank will sell about 49% of its unit in Cambodia to Japan’s Shinsei Bank Ltd. for an undisclosed amount as early as the fourth quarter, according to Chief Executive Officer Luu Trung Thai.

The Hanoi-based bank, known as MB, spent $75 million to create the unit founded in 2018, he said. 

Shinsei could not be immediately reached for comment outside business hours.

MB, which targets profit growth of 23% this year, plans to acquire a struggling Vietnamese lender this year, Thai said. Vietnam’s government seeks to restructure Construction Bank, OceanBank and GPBank as part of an overhaul of the country’s banking system. 

“We see taking on a restructured bank as a challenge but also an opportunity for us to grow as it will help us boost our total assets and lending,” he said in an interview. The bank expects as much as a 20% increase in credit growth with total assets rising by 15% to 18% this year, according to Thai. 

The bank targets adding 100,000 new enterprise clients and as many as five million individual clients every year, Thai said. MB expects 18% of its earnings to come from its two insurance units and a brokerage this year, an increase from about 13% last year, he said. 

Shares of MB were little changed at the close of trading Friday on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange and have risen 3.8% from the end of last year. The country’s benchmark VN Index has declined 8% over the same period.

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