VietinBank sells 20 pct stake to MUFG unit for $743 mln

HANOI Dec 27 (Reuters) - VietinBank, Vietnam's second-biggest partly private lender by assets, will sell a 20 percent stake to Japan's Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ for 15.46 trillion dong ($743 million), the biggest stake available to foreign investors.

The Hanoi-based bank will issue new shares to the Japanese lender in the largest-ever merger and acquisition deal in Vietnam's banking industry, VietinBank said in a statement on Thursday.

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi is a unit of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. (Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Paul Tait)