UPDATE 1-Vietnam PVI expects 60 pct net profit rise

(Adds details, share prices)

By Ho Binh Minh

HANOI, March 19 (Reuters) - Petrovietnam Insurance Corp PVI.HN, Vietnam's third-largest insurer, said on Wednesday it expected its net profit to rise at least 60 percent this year to 400 billion dong ($25 million).

Hanoi-based PVI also projected its revenues this year would expand 50 percent to at least 2.4 trillion dong, it said in a statement after a shareholder meeting on Tuesday.

Shares in PVI closed up 2.15 percent at 47,500 dong on Wednesday, valuing the firm at around $250 million.

The Hanoi Securities Trading Center .HASTCI also advanced 1.01 percent to close at 197.78 points, the first rise this week after three consecutive falls.

Vietnam's insurance sector has grown rapidly in recent years as the economy has grown around 8 percent in each of the past four years. The government aims to accelerate growth to 9 percent this year after an 8.48 percent expansion in 2007.

An insurance arm of state oil and gas Petrovietnam group, PVI is Vietnam's second-largest non-life insurance firm after Bao Viet and had a 97.49 percent share of the energy sector insurance market.

PVI said in the statement it had picked Hong Kong-based financial firm Temasia Capital Ltd as its foreign strategic investor. It gave no further details.

PVI would issue new shares to staff, existing shareholders and new strategic investors to increase the company's registered capital by 68.4 percent to 1.6 trillion dong this year.

It would pay the 2007 dividend by giving shareholders 7.6 million new shares and give another 950,000 shares as bonus shares to employees during the second quarter of this year during the first phase of the registered capital raising scheme.

In the second phase slated for the third quarter, PVI would issue 36,242,500 new shares to existing shareholders and 20,207,500 shares to strategic investors.

PVI ranks behind Bao Viet, in which HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA.L) has a 10-percent stake, and Bao Minh Insurance Corporation BMI.HN, which sold 16.6 percent of its shares to French insurer AXA (AXAF.PA) last year. ($1=16,005 dong) (Editing by Michael Battye)