Following efforts to help boost the capital-raising capabilities of companies in Vietnam, Deutsche Bank recently participated in a roundtable discussion with the country’s prime minister and other US business leaders at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Jeff Margolick, Head of Product Management for Depositary Receipts, represented Deutsche Bank at the 16 May roundtable with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. The meeting was held during the prime minister’s official state visit to the United States, an historic reciprocal visit that came 22 years after President Bill Clinton journeyed to Hanoi following normalisation of relations between the US and Vietnam.

In the NYSE roundtable discussion, Margolick joined Chinh and leaders from other US financial services firms including JPMorgan Chase, Blackstone, Warburg Pincus and Goldman Sachs, as well as the CEOs of other NYSE-listed companies. The meeting centered on ways to increase investment in Vietnamese companies.

Deutsche Bank has been working with the State Securities Commission of Vietnam and the Vietnam Securities Depository to pave the way for Vietnamese companies to raise capital abroad through the offering and listing of depositary receipts.

“Having the opportunity to speak directly to the Prime Minister about the work done to date and the remaining challenges should help to ensure that Vietnamese companies soon have greater access to the international capital markets and listing venues,” said Margolick. “Vietnam has been an outlier among ASEAN countries in this respect but is making good progress.”

Daniel Clark, Global Head of Depositary Receipts added, “Deutsche Bank has a track record of depositary receipt ‘market firsts,’ and the business has strong credentials in Asia, positioning us well to assist Vietnamese regulators and companies in this undertaking.”

During his visit, Prime Minister Chinh discussed plans to make Vietnamese companies more investment-worthy by upgrading infrastructure and rebuilding supply chains. Vietnam’s State Securities Commission and the NYSE have signed a cooperation agreement to facilitate Vietnam’s forthcoming market upgrade.

Chinh said he’d like to see Vietnam become a regional financial centre and looks forward to his country developing effective, sustainable stock markets of its own, in addition to having Vietnamese companies meet the rigorous standards of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) scrutiny and be listed on the NYSE. He asked the US financial community, including Deutsche Bank, for assistance and support in meeting those goals.

Some Vietnamese conglomerates have indicated interest in offering their shares on foreign exchanges. Earlier this year, for example, Vingroup’s automobile arm VinFast, maker of electric vehicles, submitted its application for an initial public offering to the SEC.¹

Sources

¹ See https://bit.ly/3nrBJnB at vir.com.vn