HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and Barclays Bank
Plc will advise Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry
Trade on its planned $500 million overseas bond sale, said
Deputy General Director Le Duc Tho.

The banks will also jointly arrange the sale for
VietinBank, as the country’s second-largest listed lender is
known, Tho said in a text message from Hanoi today.

It would be the second international offering of U.S.
dollar bonds by a Vietnamese corporate borrower this year, after
Vincom Joint-Stock Co. sold $40 million of 6 percent convertible
notes in July, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Any
offering would test investor confidence in the country, which
has struggled to damp Asia’s fastest inflation as its currency
slid to the worst-performing in the region this year.

“VietinBank has made a good choice of advisers,” said
Alan Pham, chief economist at VinaCapital Investment Management
Ltd. HSBC has a depth of expertise and wide distribution network
globally that will help get the Hanoi-based bank a “good
rate,” he said.

VietinBank has sought approval from the country’s central
bank to sell $500 million of bonds overseas later this year, Tho
said last month. It would be the bank’s first sale of U.S.
dollar-denominated notes, Bloomberg data show.

Shares of the company dropped 2.2 percent to 26,400 dong at
the 11 a.m. local-time close on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock
Exchange today. The lender has advanced 15 percent this year,
outpacing the 4.5 percent decline in the benchmark VN Index.

Inflation accelerated to 23 percent last month, the highest
rate among 17 Asian economies tracked by Bloomberg. Gross
domestic product in Vietnam expanded 5.6 percent in the first
six months of the year, lower than a revised 6.2 percent in the
first half of 2010.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
K. Oanh Ha at
oha3@bloomberg.net