Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Vietnam has leapt to become Southeast Asia’s topgrossing market for initial public offerings (IPO) in 2018 with total proceedsof 2.6 billion USD.

Singapore,who lost its crown to Vietnam, retreated to fourth position this year withtotal IPO value of just 500 million USD. Thailand ranked second with totalproceeds of 2.5 billion USD and Indonesia was in the third place with 1.2billion USD, data from global consultant firm Ernst and Young (EY) showed.

Vietnam’srise was attributed to large IPO deals in the country as the Government pushedahead with equitisation of big State-owned corporations.

Thefive biggest IPOs of State-owned enterprises have raised more than 19.2trillion VND (821 million USD). They included PetroVietnam Power Corporation(PV Power), Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Corp JSC (BSR), PetroVietnamOil Corp (PV Oil), Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG) and Vietnam Southern Food Corp(Vinafood II).

TheIPO of PV Power was the biggest deal with proceeds of almost 7 trillion VND,followed by BSR with 5.57 trillion VND and PV Oil with 4.2 trillion VND. VRGand Vinafood II each earned the Vietnamese Government over 1 trillion VND fortheir IPOs.

Thebiggest deal, however, belonged to a private company – the 1.35 billion USD IPOby Vinhomes, a real estate arm of Vingroup. This is also the largest ever in Vietnamand Southeast Asia’s second biggest deal in 2018.

Vietnam’srise is among few performers which saw growth in IPO activities. About 1,359IPOs were carried out globally, down 21 percent year-on-year, but totalproceeds rose 6 percent to 204.8 billion USD thanks to mega deals such as the 21.1billion USD IPO by Japanese SoftBank, 7.5 billion USD IPO by China Tower and 5.4billion USD IPO by China’s mobile phone company Xiaomi.

InSoutheast Asia, besides Vietnam, only Indonesia has had a busy IPO market withyearly growth of 66 percent while the rest of the region, including majorfinancial hub Singapore, witnessed declines.

Accordingto experts, global trade wars, political tensions and volatile markets in thesecond half of this year have had an adverse impact on businesses, causing somedelays in their listing schedules.

Inthe next three years, with more State-owned enterprises being equitised, Vietnamis expected to remain at the top of Southeast Asia’s IPO league, according to areport from Baker McKenzie and Oxford Economics compiled by CNBC.

BigIPOs expected in 2019 will include Mobifone, Vietnam Posts and TelecommunicationsGroup (VNPT), EVNGenco 1 and 2 and Agribank.-VNS/VNA