UPDATE 1-Vietnam FPT expects 2007 profit above target-media

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HANOI, Dec 14 (Reuters) - FPT FPT.HM, Vietnam's top technology services firm, expects its gross profit to rise to $56.8 million this year, 15 percent above target, a company executive was quoted on Friday as saying.

The company's gross profit for the first nine months of the year had already reached $41 million, the Vietnam Economic Times quoted FPT Deputy Chairman Bui Quang Ngoc as saying in an interview.

"The profit expected for the whole of 2007 would reach beyond the target, at 115 percent," he told the paper.

Private equity firm Texas Pacific [TPG.UL] and Intel Capital, a unit of Intel Corp (INTC.O), bought a combined 10 percent stake in Hanoi-based FPT last year for $36.5 million.

Texas Pacific has since sold an undisclosed part of its stake, but remains a key investor, FPT's chief executive has said.

FPT, the fourth largest of the 130 companies listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange .VNI, had secured more than 10 major information technology projects this year and expanded its Internet and telecoms services, Ngoc said.

FPT, the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology, has said its January to September net profit surged 91 percent from a year earlier to $35 million as revenues were up more than a quarter to around $1 billion.

FPT shares opened trading on Friday unchanged at 224,000 dong ($13.9). The company is valued at $1.28 billion.

Its subsidiaries have been dealing with retail sales, stockbroking and fund management. It has also been seeking a central bank licence to run a commercial bank.

Stockbroking services begun in October took FPT beyond its core businesses of software production, mobile phone distribution and Internet services. ($1=16,116 dong) (Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Michael Battye)