Vietnam's FPT signs $925 mln town project

HANOI, Jan 14 (Reuters) - FPT FPT.HM, Vietnam's top technology services firm, has signed a contract for a $925 million residential town project in central Vietnam, the company said in a statement at the weekend.

Under the contract signed on Saturday with the Danang People's Committee, the Hanoi-based FPT group would build a university compound, a software production zone and employee housing on an area of about 180 hectares (445 acres), the statement said.

FPT Real Estate, a subsidiary formed by the group in 2007, would start construction later this year and the town would open in mid-2012, the statement said.

FPT has expanded its business beyond its core areas of software production, mobile phone distribution and Internet services with the Danang real estate project, and also following the start up of stockbroking services last year.

US private equity firm Texas Pacific [TPG.UL] and Intel Capital, a unit of Intel Corp (INTC.O), bought a combined 10 percent stake in FPT in 2006 for $36.5 million. FPT said Texas Pacific has since sold part of its stake, but remains a key investor.

Shares in FPT, the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology, closed 2.6 percent up last Friday at 197,000 dong ($12.2).

The company, at $1.12 billion, is the fifth-largest among 140 companies listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange .VNI.

FPT has not released its results last year but it projected the gross profit to be 15 percent above target at $56.8 million. ($1=16,104 dong) (Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Valerie Lee)