The starting price for Nam Long’s shares will be VND26,500. The group expects to acquire VND1 trillion($43.8 million) from the sale.

Foreign investors can buy a maximum of five million shares, equalling 12.5 per cent of the offered shares.

With the sale, Nam Long becomes the first private firm in Vietnam to conduct a share sale via an auction to increase its charter capital.

Nam Long stated that it will use the money from the sale to invest in its commercial real estate projects and expand land funds in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

Most recently, in April, Nam Long signed a strategic partnership agreement with its Japanese partners Hankyu Hanshin Properties Corp. and Nishi Nippon Railroad to develop the Akari City township project.

Accordingly, the two Japanese investors and Nam Long will contribute 50/50 per cent of the total investment of about VND7.676 trillion ($341 million). This will be one of Nam Long’s key projects in the next 3-5 years and the fifth project to be built in cooperation with the two Japanese partners.

According to Steven Chu Chee Kwang, CEO of Nam Long, the company and the two Japanese partners are increasingly tightening relations to create not only homes but also a real estate system where properties for various purposes—commercial properties, schools, hospital, services, and entertainment, etc.—are developed synchronously, offering residential communities high-quality and unique lifestyle.

The project has a total floor area of 539,000 square metres, consisting of 4,600 apartments designed following the standards of Nam Long’s Flora product line, with separate facilities, such as community club, swimming pool, children's playground, gymnasium, and many other facilities.