Vietnam s Banks. VAMC: What we know and what to expect. Banking. Sector Research. 3 July 2013

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1 3 July 2013 Vietnam s Banks 18 March 2011 Van Ngo Senior Analyst, Banking van.ngo@vcsc.com.vn ext. 130 Sector Research Banking VAMC: What we know and what to expect. Banks reported non-performing loans at 4.67% as of April The Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) will be operational 9 July 2013 after months of waiting. Much is already known about its operations the question is how effective it will be in dealing with non performing loans (NPLs) in the banking system. As of April 2013, banks reported NPL ratio climbed to 4.67% from 4.08% at the end of However, the actual ratio is unknown and confusing. The most realistic NPL ratio, officially announced by the government at the end of 2012 was 8.8%, more than double the banks reported NPLs. The consensus for current NPLs are about 18-20% if including defaulted loans to the two SOE giants Vinashin and Vinalines. Expectations may be too high for the VAMC. The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) expects to settle about VND80-100tn (US$4-5bn) worth of NPLs (or 60-70% of total NPLs) in 2013 with an expected recovery rate of 20-40%. Although we think the VAMC will earnestly start to purchase impaired loans through special bond issuances, its target for this year looks optimistic. More realistically, we estimate that the VAMC will handle 20-30% of total NPLs, through the two schemes stated by the VAMC's charter, the details of which we will outline later. In brief, the first scheme, a pure exchange of VAMC bonds for banks' bad debts at book value less provisions, will be a more viable option than the second scheme, which is to purchase impaired loans with cash, especially given that the VAMC's initial charter capital of VND500bn (US$24m) is tiny compared to the amount of bad debts to be purchased. Obstacles remain, banks say VAMC requirements too strict. There are major obstacles that could hamper the effectiveness of the VAMC's operations such as: i) good transparency in the recognition and classification of NPLs; ii) efficient capital market; iii) explicit government financial support; iv) lack of experts to properly run an AMC; v) and the threat of interest groups present in the banking system. Banks say the VAMC is too strict on key points, in particular, a requirement calling for at least 65% of a bad loan must be collateralized by real estate to be eligible to be sold to the VAMC; banks state 50-60% is more reasonable. It is unclear which banks will participate in the program. According to the SBV, only 30 out of 124 credit institutions reported NPLs higher than the threshold ratio of 3%. Credit institutions with NPLs higher than 3% are required to sell impaired loans to the VAMC to bring the ratio down. With the notable exception of Vietcombank at 3.2% NPL ratio, most publicly listed banks including Asia Commercial Bank, Military Bank, Eximbank, Vietinbank, and Sacombank, reported NPLs under 3% as of the end of 1Q13. We do see positives for the VAMC it s a step in the right direction. The majority of the NPL portfolio are collateralized loans, especially in the form of real estate, which have been proven to be the most collectible debts in regional countries. Additionally, the use of zero coupon bonds alleviate financing pressure on the VAMC and thus should help to speed up the NPL resolution progress. It's still too early to gauge the impact of the VAMC, however, we outline details of the VAMC in this report to help investors have a better understanding of what it is and how it will work. VCSC<GO> Viet Capital Securities 1

2 Vietnam Assets Management (VAMC) What is the VAMC? The Vietnam Assets Management Company (VAMC) is a specialised enterprise in the form of a one member limited liability company with 100% of the charter capital held by the State but subject to the management, inspection and monitoring conducted by the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV). The VAMC has an initial capital of VND500bn (US$24m) and starts operation on July 9, The VAMC will conduct the following: Purchase credit institutions impaired assets, manage and dispose the assets, finally realize recovery. Restructure impaired loans by modifying the terms of loan, reschedule payment term, excuse certain portion of the capital and interest of the debt, or swap debt to equity. Hold auction to carry out open bids and auctions of the holding equities, physical acquired assets. Provide borrow guarantee debtors whose impaired loans sold to VAMC to be able to access new credit from banks. The VAMC will buy from whom? Credit institutions (CIs transferring banks) with non-performing loan ratio (NPLs) of 3% or above will be required by the SBV to sell the NPLs to VAMC until the requirement is met. Those CIs who do not comply with this directive will be subject to external audit by an auditing firm and/or an independent assets evaluation firm to assess the quality and value of the assets, equity and capital of those CIs. Based on re-evaluating results, the CIs are required to: a) sell bad debts to VAMC until NPLs reach a safe level and/or; b) make sufficient provision on their bad debt and/or; c) face compulsory restructuring by the SBV; d) incur costs of related auditing and evaluating processes. What will the VAMC buy? VAMC will selectively purchase impaired loans (including client loans, unlisted corporate bonds) which satisfy the following criteria: Impaired loans with at least 65% of collaterals under the form of real estate. Collateral assets must have proper title documentation. Debts and collateral assets must be legal. Borrowers must still be in operation and otherwise contactable and verifiable. Debts are not concurrently used to secure the performance of other obligations of lenders while collateral assets must not be involved in any disputes. Debtor must have outstanding loans in excess of VND3bn with respect to an enterprise or VND1bn with respect to an individual. If VAMC purchases impaired loans by cash as in Scheme 2 (see below), those loans should satisfy the above mentioned criteria. In addition, it must also: Have collateral that is assessed as valuable and recoverable; Borrower has the financial capability to repay bad debts. VCSC<GO> Viet Capital Securities 2

3 How will the VAMC acquire impaired loans? The VAMC will purchase bad loans from selective banks under two schemes: Scheme 1: VAMC issues special bonds (SBs) in exchange for transferring banks bad loans. Under this scheme, VAMC acts as a temporary warehouse that holds and manage to dispose the impaired loans for transferring banks NPLs for an extended period of time. Transferring banks would ultimately bear any risks and losses incurred pertaining to transferred impaired loans if VAMC fells to sell those loans at the maturity date of SBs. The special bonds will have the following characteristics: a) Tenor of maximum 5 years and zero coupon rates. Transferring banks are allowed to choose tenor for special bonds which they receive in exchange for their impaired loans. b) The face value of the bonds will be equal to the book value of the bad loans after deducting any provisions made against those loans. Rights and obligation of transferring banks: a) Transferring banks can use SBs as collaterals to access re-financing funds from the SBV. The SBV reserves the right to determine the refinancing amount and lending interest rate based on the face value of the SBs at a certain period of time. We expect transferring banks can borrow at 50-70% of the SBs face value with interest rates of 3-5% per annum. b) Transferring banks have rights to receive proceeds on recovery amount after deducting for associated direct recovery costs and 2% of recovery value as a fee charge for VAMC. Banks then record the proceeds as its earnings. c) Transferring banks have to make provision of at least 20% of the SBs face value per year until the SBs mature. At the maturity date of the SBs, banks will have written off the transferred loans to zero. Those annual provision expenses will be annually recorded as operating expenses of transferring banks thus will be net off directly to the banks earnings. d) If the VAMC cannot fully or just partially settle down transferred impaired loans when the SBs mature, the transferring banks have to use the SBs to repurchase those impaired loans at book value. Scheme 2: VAMC purchases banks bad loans at market value of those loans. The purchase price must not be higher than the market value or the re-assessed value of the debts. Sources to fund the VAMC s purchases could be its chartered capital, mobilized funds and reserves. Glimpse on AMCs of regional countries. Finally, we do not attempt to do a due diligence research on the establishment and operation of assets management companies (AMC) in regional countries. However, we have scanned available resources to provide a glimpse on how other countries have faired after setting up AMCs to deal with their own NPLs in the last decade. VCSC<GO> Viet Capital Securities 3

4 Figure 1: Comparison of AMC in regional countries as of Dec 2002 Country Name of public AMC Year set up Sunset date Transferred NPL to NPLs ratio AMCs/total NPLs (at peak) (%) Recovery rate (%) China Great Wall Asset Management (Great Wall) years Orient Asset Management (Orient - COAMC) years Cinda Asset Management (Cinda) years Huarong Asset Management (Huarong) years Indonesia Indonesia Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) 1998 Feb Japan Resolution and Collection Corporation (RCC) 1999 n/a n/a Korea Korea Asset Management Corporation (KAMCO) 1998 n/a Malaysia Danaharta Taiwan Financial Restructuring Fund (FRF) 2001 n/a 7.5 n/a n/a Thailand Thai Asset Management Company (TAMC) 2001 Jun n/a Source: Financial Stability Institute, Bank for International Settlement VCSC<GO> Viet Capital Securities 4

5 Analyst Certification I, Van Ngo, hereby certify that the views expressed in this report accurately reflect my personal views about the subject securities or issuers. I also certify that no part of my compensation was, is, or will be, directly or indirectly, related to the specific recommendations or views expressed in this report. The equity research analysts responsible for the preparation of this report receive compensation based upon various factors, including the quality and accuracy of research, client feedback, competitive factors, and overall firm revenues, which include revenues from, among other business units, Institutional Equities and Investment Banking. VCSC Rating System and Valuation Methodology Absolute performance, long term (fundamental) rating key: The recommendation is based on implied absolute upside/downside for the stock from the target price, defined as (target price current price)/current price, and is not related to market performance. This structure applies from 1 November Equity rating key BUY ADD REDUCE SELL NOT RATED RATING SUSPENDED Definition If the target price is 20% higher than the market price If the target price is 10-20% higher than the market price If the target price is 10% below or 10% above the market price If the target price is 10-20% lower than the market price If the target price is 20% lower than the market price The company is or may be covered by the Research Department but no rating or target price is assigned either voluntarily or to comply with applicable regulation and/or firm policies in certain circumstances, including when VCSC is acting in an advisory capacity in a merger or strategic transaction involving the company. The investment rating and target price for this stock have been suspended as there is not a sufficient fundamental basis for determining an investment rating or target. The previous investment rating and target price, if any, are no longer in effect for this stock. Unless otherwise specified, these performance parameters only reflect capital appreciation and are set with a 12- month horizon. Future price volatility may cause temporary mismatch between upside/downside for a stock based on market price and the formal recommendation, thus these performance parameters should be interpreted flexibly. Small Cap Research: VCSC Research covers companies with a market capitalisation of up to USD50mn, inclusively. Clients should note that coverage may not be consistent and that VCSC may drop coverage of small caps at any time without notice. Target price: In most cases, the target price will equal the analyst's assessment of the current fair value of the stock. The target price is the level the stock should currently trade at if the market were to accept the analyst's view of the stock, provided the necessary catalysts were in place to effect this change in perception within the performance horizon. However, if the analyst doesn't think the market will reassess the stock over the specified time horizon due to a lack of events or catalysts, then the target price may differ from fair value. In most cases, therefore, our recommendation is an assessment of the mismatch between current market price and our assessment of current fair value. Valuation Methodology: To derive the target price, the analyst may use different valuation methods, including, but not limited to, discounted free cash-flow and comparative analysis. The selection of methods depends on the industry, the company, the nature of the stock and other circumstances. Company valuations are based on a single or a combination of one of the following valuation methods: 1) Multiple-based models (P/E, P/cash flow, EV/sales, EV/EBIT, EV/EBITA, EV/EBITDA), peer-group comparisons, and historical valuation approaches; 2) Discount models (DCF, DVMA, DDM); 3) Break-up value approaches or asset-based evaluation methods; and 4) Economic profit approaches (Residual Income, EVA). Valuation models are dependent on macroeconomic factors, such as GDP growth, interest rates, exchange rates, raw materials, on other assumptions about the economy, as well as risks inherent to the company under review. Furthermore, market sentiment may affect the valuation of companies. Valuations are also based on expectations that might change rapidly and without notice, depending on developments specific to individual industries. Risks: Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Foreign currency rates of exchange may adversely affect the value, price or income of any security or related instrument mentioned in this report. For investment advice, trade execution or other enquiries, clients should contact their local sales representative. VCSC<GO> Viet Capital Securities 5

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