HANOI (Reuters): South Korean conglomerate SK Group plans to sell about a fifth of its holding in Vietnam's Vingroup starting from next week, a Vingroup filing showed on Friday.
With a 6.05% stake, SK's group financial vehicle SK Investment Vina II PTE is currently the top foreign investor in the Vietnamese group, whose businesses range from property and shopping malls to electric vehicles. After the sale, SK will hold 4.72% of the total shares and is no longer a major shareholder.
The transaction, which is carried out on the purpose of SK's restructuring portfolio, is expected to be completed by Feb. 14, according to the filing. The sale is estimated to generate about 508 billion dong ($20.03 million) based on current market price, it said.
Last November, SK completed its sale of around 76 million of its shares in Vietnam's Masan group for $200 million.
"SK and Vingroup are still discussing a number of cooperation opportunities to maximize development potential in the coming time," Nguyen Viet Quang, Vingroup's general director, said in a separate statement.
SK did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vingroup has in recent years been weighed down by losses at VinFast, an electric car maker it controls.
On Monday, rating agency Fitch said its rating of Vinhomes , Vietnam's leading real estate firm and a unit of Vingroup, "was constrained by Vingroup's consolidated profile with high leverage".
Moody's issued a similar assessment of Vinhomes on Monday.
($1 = 25,360.0000 dong) (Reporting by Phuong Nguyen and Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Martin Petty and Tomasz Janowski) - Reuters
