Shares in budget airline Vietjet soared by 20 percent after floating on the stock exchange in Ho Chi Minh, in the country’s largest IPO.
Shares surged to the maximum possible on Tuesday, up by a fifth from its listing price of 90,000 dong to 108,000 Vietnamese dong.
The airline, which is known for its publicity campaigns featuring air hostesses in bikinis, currently operates about 60 routes both domestically and internationally and may be set to overtake Vietnam Airlines as the country’s most popular carrier.
Vietjet carried 14 million passengers last year, up from 9.3 million in 2015. Its IPO was valued at $167 million, and is Vietnam’s biggest flotation.
The airline was founded in 2007 by banking and property businesswoman Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, and has since risen in popularity to match market share with Vietnam Airlines. It has competition from Asian air giant AirAsia, as well as Jet2 Asia.
Vietjet are largely famous for their risky publicity stunt to launch a route to Nha Trang, which depicted air hostesses in bikinis on board a flight and saw the company fined by Vietnam’s aviation watchdog.
The airline’s IPO is further evidence of Vietnam opening itself up to foreign investment and increasing business ties with other nations. In May of last year, Vietjet signed a deal to buy the Boeing 737 Max 200 jets during ex-President of the United States Barack Obama’s trip to the communist country.