Reuters scoops Vietnam’s biggest inbound M&A deal with Mizuho’s 20pct stake buy in Vietcombank

Reuters scooped news on July 20 that Japans Mizuho Corp Bank was close to buying a 20 percent stake in Vietcombank, in what would be Vietnams biggest ever inbound M&A deal. The story made a big impact; Vietcombank shares jumped 4 percent, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg followed up to produce their own stories, while Nomura issued a research report saying the proposed acquisition will be credit negative for Mizuho.The story resulted from solid team work between Tokyo and Hong Kong bureaus. Tokyo passed on a tip about Mizhou’s imminent investment plans in Vietnam and Hong Kong chased sources to indentify the target. Bloomberg took nearly one day to catch up, while WSJ came in few hours behind.