• It was annnounced that RHB Investment Bank will be acquiring the remaining 51% stake (6,885,000 shares of VND 10,000 each )that it does not own in Vietnam Securities Corporation (VSC) from Chu Thi Phuong Dung, Truong Lan Anh and Viet Quoc Insurance Broker Joint Stock Company.

• The additional shareholdings will be acquired for US$5.365mil or RM21.285mil. The acquisition is expected to be completed by 2QFY18, consequently turning VSC into a wholly-owned subsidiary of RHB Investment Bank. Payment will be satisfied by cash.

• VSC's financials for the year ended 31 December 2009 showed a net profit of VND3.2bil (circa RM561,000).

• Earnings accretion from the deal to RHB Bank is expected to be minimal for the additional 51% stake.

• As the acquisition cost is not substantially large, the impact to the group's capital will be minimal.

• We maintain our forecast for RHB Bank.

• We kept our BUY call on the stock with an unchanged fair value of RM6.00/share based on FY18 P/BV of 1.0x supported by an ROE of 9.1%.

Source: AmInvest Research - 12 Feb 2018