A meeting of shareholders of the first Vietnamese fund to list on the London Stock Exchange has voted to close down Indochina Capital Vietnam Holdings Ltd. (ICV) after it lost more than half its value.
ICV, managed by the high-profile Indochina Capital Corporation, will be liquidated within the next 12 to 18 months and the proceeds paid to the shareholders.
The net assets of the fund, worth US$500 million when it listed in London in 2007, were valued at $242.9 million at the end of July,
Indochina Capital Corporation said Friday 65 percent of ICV shareholders at the Thursday irregular shareholders meeting voted to close the fund.
The fund is a closed-end fund that invested in Vietnam’s volatile equities markets. Vietnam has two stock markets, the benchmark VN-Index based in Ho Chi Minh City and the smaller Hanoi Stock Trading Center, or HASTC.
For several months last year the VN-Index was the world’s worst-performing stock market. It lost 70 percent of its value in 2008 but has rallied this year, gaining 60 percent to date, making it this year’s sixth-best performing index at the end of last week.
Nguyen Hoang Hai, general secretary of the Vietnam Association of Financial Investors, told Tuoi Tre newspaper the closure of ICV had been expected because investors were no longer pleased with the fund’s performance.
Indochina Capital Group told the shareholder meeting the closure of the fund would have a minimal effect on Vietnam’s stock markets.
ICV’s portfolio included blue chip stocks such as insurer Bao Viet Holdings Co., Vietcombank, telecommunication giant FPT, dairy firm Vinamilk, PetroVietnam Fertilizer and Chemical Joint-Stock Co., The Saigon Times Daily reported.
Indochina Capital Group said it will maintain its real estate investment division in Vietnam, Indochina Land, which currently manages three funds valued at more than $460 million.
POST YOUR COMMENT
City & Country
Phone Number
We will not publish
your email or full address on our website, or give them to a third party.
Tags:
Vietnews is not responsible
for the content of external Internet sites.