Vietnam's SCIC plans to divest from 108 companies this year.
Photo acquired by VnExpress. 

The State Capital Investment Corporation will auction its entire 49.89 percent stake in prawn cracker maker Sa Giang Import-Export JSC. 

SCIC said that it will offload all its 3.56 million shares in Sa Giang with the aim of restructuring its state capital investment portfolio. The agency will auction its shares in lots, so that an investor can only offer to buy all the shares of a particular lot at a particular time.

The auction is scheduled to be held July 15 at the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE), Vietnam’s main bourse. The winning bidder will be given one week to pay for the shares.

The starting price for each of Sa Giang’s shares will be VND111,700 ($4.80), around VND10,000 (43 cents) lower than what it traded for in the Wednesday morning session. If the auction is successful, SCIC estimates it will collect over VND400 billion ($17.2 million).

Sa Giang specializes in producing ready-to-eat foods such as prawns crackers and instant noodles, as well as newer products such as crackers made from crab, fish, and squid. The company mainly exports to Europe, especially Germany and the Netherlands, as well as some Asian countries.

Last year, Sa Giang recorded VND288 billion ($12.38 million) in revenue and VND23 billion ($988,862) in profit after tax. Sa Giang is one of SCIC’s first divestments after it announced a list of 108 companies from which it will divest state-owned stake in the second half of 2019.

The SCIC was set up in 2005 to restructure of state-owned enterprises to make them more efficient and to enable the state to consolidate capital in sectors it considers key.