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S. Korea to speed up sale of Woori Finance
SEOUL, Jan. 27 (Yonhap) -- South Korea plans to decide how to sell Woori Finance Holdings Co. in the first half in a bid to accelerate the privatization of the financial firm, the financial watchdog said Wednesday.
The state-run Korea Deposit Insurance Corp. (KDIC) holds a 66 percent stake in South Korea's No. 2 financial services company after unloading a 7 percent interest Nov. 24 through a block trade. Excluding a controlling 50 percent stake plus one share, the agency plans to sell the remaining 16 percent via a block trade this year.
"A minority stake will be first unloaded before the privatization," Kwon Hyouk-se, vice chairman of the Financial Services Commission (FSC), told a press conference. "The government plans to decide the methods of selling the group as soon as possible in the first half."
The Public Fund Oversight Committee, which is in charge of the sale of state assets, will hold a meeting later in the day to review how to sell Woori Finance, including a minority stake. Market watchers speculated that a 7 percent stake in the company may be sold via block trade.
The FSC has said the government is open to various options to sell the controlling stake in Woori. It is considering a merger with other financial services companies and selling Woori Finance to a number of investors by splitting the controlling stake. The government is also mulling selling affiliates of Woori Finance in a bid to make it easier for the holding company to be privatized.
South Korea injected 12.8 trillion won (US$11 billion) of public funds into Woori Finance to save it from near-bankruptcy in the aftermath of the 1997-98 Asian financial meltdown. The KDIC has since retrieved 4 trillion won in public funds.
sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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