Vietnam's Habubank seeks Hanoi listing licence

HANOI, Sept 23 | Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:24pm EDT

(Reuters) - Vietnam's partly private Habubank, 10 percent owned by Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), has sought permission to list shares on the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the exchange said on Thursday.

Habubank, or the Hanoi Building Commercial Joint Stock Bank, would list all its 300 million shares representing its registered capital of 3 trillion dong, the exchange said in a statement.

In March, Habubank forecast its gross profit would rise as much as 37 percent this year to between 650 billion and 690 billion dong ($33-$35 million). [ID:nHAN537131]

Once approved, shares of Habubank, one among the 20 largest partly private lenders in Vietnam, would compete with those from Asia Commercial Bank ACB.HN, Saigon Hanoi Bank SHB.HN and Navibank NVB.HN on the Hanoi exchange.

The exchange's HNX index .HNXI was down 1.89 percent at 129.04 points at 0308 GMT on Thursday, having lost 23.3 percent so far this year. ($1=19,490 dong) (Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Valerie Lee)