PV Gas to sell stake in gas trading firm

PV Gas is now the biggest shareholder at the Southern Gas Trading with a 35.26 percent stake.

Southern Gas Trading is listing 50 million shares on the Hanoi Stock Exchange with code PGS.

PGS soared 5.3 percent to end October 5 at VND15,900 ($0.68) apiece following the news. At that price, the stake of PV Gas at the Southern Gas Trading JSC is worth VND280 billion ($12 million).

The company’s share price has fallen nearly a half from its one-year high of VND32,000 ($1.38) apiece reached in October 2019.

PV Gas shares, listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange as GAS, edged up 0.8 percent to VND72,500 ($3.1) apiece at the end of October 5.

PV Gas’ divestment plant was determined after the company previously failed to increase its stake in the Southern Gas Trading JSC.

In October 2019, PGS planned to sell 16.1 million shares for VND23,409 ($1) per share, valuing the deal at VND377 billion ($16.3 million), to PV Gas to raise funding for its production and trading activities.

If the deal had been done, PV Gas would have upped its ownership in the Southern Gas Trading to 51.03 percent or 33.7 million shares.

PV Gas then could have been the parent company. But the deal was rejected by the Southern Gas Trading’s shareholders at the annual meeting on October 29, 2019.

PGS sells liquefied and compressed natural gas (LNG and CNG). The company takes a 35 percent market share in selling LPG in the South and Southern Central Region.

The company has recently acquired the Vietnam Gas Tank Co, which now produces a total of 379,000 tanks a year.

PGS also supplies CNG for the southern region with a wide range of customers working in different sectors, including materials and consumer segments.

In 2019, PV Gas South earned a total VND6.38 trillion ($276.3 million) worth of revenue, fulfilling 97 percent of the year’s plan. Pre-tax profit in 2019 was VND93 billion ($43 million), equal to 90 percent of the year’s plan.

In the first half of 2020, the spread of coronavirus around the globe made PV Gas South suffer a post-tax loss of VND20 billion ($868,000).

Source: VietnamPlus