By Abhirup Roy
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) -Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast (NASDAQ:) aims to increase its free float – or shares available to the public for trading – to 10-20% of shares by the end of this year, from roughly 2% currently, the company’s chairperson said on Tuesday.
“This year we plan as the markets recover and as we show more achievements of progress, we will do follow-on transactions … increasing the free float, bringing in many more investors, including long-only investors,” Le Thi Thu Thuy, the former CEO and current VinFast chairperson, told Reuters on the sidelines of the CES trade show in Las Vegas. The free float “hopefully would be 10-20% at least,” she said.
VinFast sold over 21,000 vehicles in the first three quarters last year.
The company, which has yet to make a profit, has entered the EV market as car prices are under pressure, led by cuts at market leader Tesla (NASDAQ:) and a range of Chinese companies, including BYD (SZ:).
The company closed the third quarter, which ended on Sept. 30, with a net loss of $623 million.