27/3/2019 – Singapore state investor Temasek has made an investment of about US$29 million in additional shares of Vietnamese Internet major VNG Corporation to own 6.35 percent of the company’s voting shares.
According to a regulatory filing by VNG, the buyer is Seletar Investments, a subsidiary under Temasek which had completed the transaction on March 4.
The deal was completed at a price of VND1.86 million (about US$80.8) a piece, which is 186 times higher than its face value at VND10K and 75 percent higher than the minimum price of VND1.061 million that the company’s general meeting of shareholders has proposed.
It is known that Seletar investments has purchased an additional 355,820 VNG treasury stocks and now owns a total of 1.74 million shares, equivalent to 5.04 percent of charter capital and 6.35 percent of VNG’s outstanding shares.
Proceeds from the deal will be used to expand VNG’s presence in domestic and foreign markets as well as to serve some future investments.
Another investment unit related to Temasek is Gamvest Pte Ltd which is also holding 10.25 percent of VNG’s outstanding shares.
With 27.4 million shares outstanding on the price that Temasek has just bought, VNG’s market capitalization is up to VND51 billion (US$2.2 billion).
After this transaction, VNG still maintains over 7.1 million treasury shares on total issued shares of 34.54 million shares. VNG’s subsidiaries are also holding 2.86 million shares of the parent company, which consisted of treasury stocks.
In September 2018, VNG first announced the details about its shareholders and the number of shares held. The company has eight shareholders, including four individual investors and four institutional investors.
The foreign investors included Goldman Sachs, GIC, and two British Virgin Island-domiciled investors rumoured to be Chinese giant Tencent’s affiliates. These four shareholders collectively held 43.42 percent of VNG at the time of the announcement.
Previously, VNG signed a memorandum of understanding with Nasdaq to list its shares. VNG then said it would take about two years for the IPO transaction to materialize. If completed, it would be Vietnam’s first overseas listing.
Founded in 2014, VNG is a company that specializes in online game publishing, which still remain as its main source of revenue. It aims to become one of the leading internet and technology companies and has expanded into many new industries including payment, ecommerce, and advertising in the recent years.
