Nguyễn Thị Nhung

In the third bank restructuring process in Vietnam during the 2011–2016 period, banking system experienced the participation of 14 commercial banks with 7 successful, both mandatory and voluntary, M&A deals. This research tries to answer if M&A was a good method of dealing with weak banks as Vietnam expected. Firstly, the article evaluates M&A activities’ effects on business results of acquiring banks through three financial ratios (including return on asset (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and net interest margin (NIM) by using paired sample T-Test. The results show that M&A activities only have positive effects on ROA of acquiring banks in Vietnam, while impacts of M&A activities on ROE and NIM are not clear. Secondly, by using a fuzzy TOPSIS approach based on Balanced Scorecard, the research shows that the performance of acquiring banks in mandatory M&A deals are not good as compared to the other acquiring banks. In fact, M&A deal only has strongly positive effects on acquiring bank performance, when it is totally based on real demands of both target and acquiring banks as well as created synergy. Therefore, to deal with weak banks in the next time period, Vietnamese banking system should focus on other market solutions in addition to keeping the nature of M&A activities and improving its efficiency.

The introduction of the first tradable stock index futures of VN 30 is a very good signal showing that Vietnam is starting to have a high-level financial market, which brings many expectations about sustainable and safe development of its stock market. However, risk concerns of this type of derivative products have been raising with many claims since then. This article aims to provide empirical evidences to show if futures trading plays important role of price discovery and information transmission for spot market. Using daily data collected about VN 30 Index Futures, VN 30 Index, VN Index from August 10, 2017 to February 28, 2019, which is divided into three sub-periods (increase/decrease/recovery), the research verifies VN 30 Index Futures’ role of price discovery and information transmission by applying Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). Empirical findings show that there is a stable equilibrium relationship between the two series groups (including VN 30 Index Futures, VN 30 Index and VN 30 Index Futures and VN Index) during three sub-periods or spot and futures markets are integrated and synchronized. In particular, VN 30 Index Futures’ price discovery and information transmission are clearly seen when the market falls or does not change a lot.

In July 2018, the Vietnam Commodity Exchange (VNX) was transferred into the Mercantile Exchange of Vietnam (MXV) to hedge price risks through futures on international commodity exchanges. This research aimed to verify the efficiency of futures on ICE EU and ICE US under the perspective of hedging for Vietnamese coffee, determine optimal hedging ratios and the optimal number of each futures contract, and investigate the feasibility of introducing domestic commodity exchanges in Vietnam. Using the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), the results show that (1) Robusta futures with expiration dates of January, March, May, and July on ICE EU are efficient hedging tools, but the adverse result is justified for Arabica futures on ICE US; (2) Robusta futures with the expiration date of January are the best in terms of risk management for Vietnamese coffee market; (3) optimal hedge ratio of Robusta futures of around 34% is much lower than ratios showed by previous researches; (4) in the short term, introducing coffee futures into the domestic commodity exchanges is still not feasible in the short term, but should be considered in the long term in Vietnam. This is the first study providing empirical evidence about the hedging role of futures contracts on ICE EU and ICE US, contributing to enrich the existing empirical evidence on the hedging role of futures for the agricultural sector.