Hanoi (VNA) - Masan Consumer Corporation closes its final list of shareholders on November 14 to prepare for its stock market debut on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM).

ඣ After closing the list, Masan Consumer, Vietnam’s largest food and beverages producer, will undertake other required procedures, such as depositing shares and filing the listing application on the UPCoM.

"The company will put off all share transfers until its shares are officially trading on the UPCoM,” it said in a statement. UPCoM, which went live in June 2010, is a market for unlisted or delisted public companies under the management of the Hanoi Stock Exchange. It now has 366 stocks with a total market capitalisation of around 170 trillion VND (7.6 billion USD). Masan Consumer has a charter capital of around 5.4 trillion VND (242 million USD), equivalent to 538.2 million shares. Its parent company, Masan Consumer Holdings, holds 499.9 million shares, or 96.1 percent of its voting shares. Masan Consumer itself has 18 million shares as treasury stocks. The remaining 20 million shares are freely transferable in the market. In January 2016, Masan Consumer Holdings paid around 780 million USD to purchase 97.7 million shares of Masan Consumer at 179,000 VND per share. If the company debuts shares on the UPCoM at this price, its market capitalisation will hit 93 trillion VND (4.2 billion USD), which is three times higher than the market value of Hanoi Beer Alcohol and Beverage Joint Stock Corporation ( Habeco), the biggest listed stock on the UPCoM at 29 trillion VND. Masan Consumer is one of the largest local fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies. It manufactures and distributes a wide range of food and beverage products, including soya sauce, fish sauce, chilli sauce, instant noodles, instant coffee and popular bottled beverages such as Chin-su, Nam Ngu, Tam Thai Tu, Omachi, Kokomi, Vinacafé and Vinh Hao. The company exports to the United States, Canada, France, Russia, Germany, China, the Middle East and other Asian countries. In the first nine months of this year, Masan Consumer earned 9.1 trillion VND in total revenue and 1.65 trillion VND in net profit, up 6 percent year-on-year in revenues but down 4 percent year-on-year in profits. Many companies have recently opted to list their shares on the UPCoM because of the advantages of a central and transparent trading platform, but with lower listing standards compared to the HCM Stock Exchange and Hanoi Stock Exchange. Four companies – Dong Nai Material & Building Investment Joint Stock Company (DND), Central Plant Protection Joint Stock Company No.1 (BT1), Quang Binh Railway Joint Stock Company (QBR) and Tra Vinh Urban Project Joint Stock Company (TVU) – debuted shares on the UPCoM on November 10, with a total listing of nearly 18 million shares.-VNA