Vietnam Airlines Corporation has announced that this June the Prime Minister will ratify the firm’s volume of shares to be sold in its initial public offering (IPO) this September. Responding to a query by Bloomberg Business News, Mr. Pham Ngoc Minh, General Director of Vietnam Airlines, said that the firm is valued at $2.74 billion and it will sell a quantity of shares in accordance with market demand. The Vietnamese government is trying to accelerate the process of equitization of state-owned enterprises (SOE), with the aim of selling shares of more than 400 SOEs from now until the end of 2015. Commenting on the Vietnam Air IPO, Mr. Alan Pham, an economist of VinaCapital, said that foreign investors are interested in shares of Vietnam Airlines because this is one of the largest state-owned enterprises operating at profit. Vietnam Airlines is considered the brightest gem among Vietnam SOEs. According to Minh, Vietnam Airlines is expected to serve 15.8 million passengers this year, compared with 14.7 million passengers in 2013. The corporation's revenue is estimated to have risen by 4.5% to VND14.6 trillion, equivalent to $692 million, in the first quarter. Vietnam Airlines’ long-awaited IPO plan has been delayed several times since 2010. If it is implemented as planned this year, the carrier will benefit from the upward trend of the Vietnamese stock market since the beginning of the year. The VN-Index has risen 14% so far this year, to become the stock index with the strongest growth in Southeast Asia. Last September Vietnam Airlines worked with advisors, including Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, to evaluate its assets for equitization. The asset evaluation was completed in February and the company is now awaiting the government’s approval.                                                                                                                                               VietnamnetBridge