The Hanoi-based bank, which conducted its initial public offering in late December, will soon complete procedures to list o­n June 26, the Dau Tu Chung Khoan (Securities Investment) newspaper quoted a BIDV official as saying.

BIDV, or the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam, raised nearly 1.58 trillion dong ($75 million) in the country's largest IPO last year.

BIDV officials were not immediately available to confirm the expected date of debut but the lender said in December it planned a share debut in the last week of June 2012. IPOs and stock listings are two separate processes in Vietnam.

BIDV shares would join those of VietinBank -- the largest partly private lender -- and Vietcombank o­n the Ho Chi Minh City market. All of them plus state-owned Agribank are considered Vietnam's top state-run commercial banks.

BIDV plans to get shareholders' approval o­n the listing plan at a general meeting o­n Thursday, as it aims to raise transparency in operations and also liquidity for BIDV shares, the bank said in a report to shareholders.

It has projected gross profit this year to jump 36 percent from 2011 to 5.8 trillion dong ($278.6 million), based o­n a 17-percent annual credit growth to 326.4 trillion dong, with o­nly 2.8 percent of which will be bad debt.

The projections are subject to shareholders' approval, the bank said.

BIDV's targets are in line with the central bank's policy to keep the annual lending expansion among the country's largest banks at 17 percent this year. ($1=20,816 dong)
TBCKVN