Vinatex plans to sell stakes to fund restructuring and boost profit

Vietnam’s top textiles manufacturer, Vinatex or Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group to fund restructuring and boost profit plans to sell stakes, in a listing it hopes would accede with the agreement of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a 12-nation pact that would cover a third of global trade.

Vinatex will conduct its IPO on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange on July 22, offering 24.4 percent of the company, or 122 million stakes, at a starting price of 11,000 dong (52 U.S. cents) each.

Another 24 percent would be sold to yet-to-be-determined strategic investors, 0.6 percent would be sold to employees, and the state would retain 51 percent.

Vinatex general director Tran Quang Nghi told investors on Wednesday that they will strive to list in three years, and if conditions are favourable – the TPP is signed or better (earnings) ratios are reported – the listing could come faster. The IPO of Hanoi-based Vinatex is widely seen as one of the more attractive in the communist country, where the government is reforming a largely inefficient state sector that accounts for about half of the country’s debt.

Garments and textiles are Vietnam’s second-biggest cash earner after cellphones netting $18 billion in 2013, with the figure projected to rise to $24 billion this year. Vinatex estimates about two thirds of that, however, is spent on importing materials, mainly from China.

The TPP has been under negotiation for five years and would make Vietnamese garments more competitive than those of China, currently the biggest textile exporter to the U.S. market.

Vinatex wants to raise registered capital to 5 trillion dong ($234.6 million) from 3.4 trillion dong to invest in yarn production, weaving and dyeing, and stitching – to reduce reliance on Chinese imports and qualify for the TPP’s "yarn forward" requirement concerning locally made materials.

The company projects a 28 percent increase in net profit this year to 300 billion dong from 234 billion in 2013. It said its profit margin could fall due to rising domestic competition as local firms boost production ahead of the TPP signing.

It will take up to three years to list its shares on the stock market after an initial public offering (IPO) planned for later this month. In Vietnam, an IPO and listing are two separate processes that can sometimes be years apart.