16th Oct 2015 08:58
LONDON (Alliance News) - Vietnam Infrastructure Ltd on Friday welcomed the narrowing of the discount at which its shares trade in relation to net asset value over its last financial year.
Its net asset value decreased to USD202.5 million or USD0.58 per share from USD213.4 million or USD0.61 per share in the year ended June 30, while the share price grew by 19.5% to USD0.49. The discount narrowed to 17% from 33.9%. The company returned USD0.7 million to shareholders through share buybacks.
The higher share price was due to factors such as a "more buoyant" domestic equities market and investors' recognition of the value created by a restructuring which separated the listed and private equity components of the company's portfolio into two distinct pools, now represented by different share classes.
"Vietnam has experienced improving conditions for business over the past 12 months. Manufacturing continues to grow underpinned by strong foreign direct investment, consumer confidence remains robust and this improvement is flowing through to the domestic equity markets which, until recent financial events in China, saw the VN-Index return to 2009 levels," Chairman Rupert Carington said in a statement.
"Structurally, Vietnam agreed the terms of a bilateral Free Trade Agreement with the European Union which will see almost all tariffs removed. In addition, the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement covering 40% of the world's population was finally agreed although not yet ratified," Carington said.
"Domestically, we saw revisions to foreign ownership restrictions in both the equity markets and real estate sector as the Vietnamese government takes steps towards further liberalisation of the economy. Vietnam moves slowly in these matters but continues to present investors with the attractive opportunities," the chairman added.
Shares in the fund were untraded at USD0.195 on Friday morning.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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