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