By Kang Seung-woo
Staff reporter

The government said Friday it will complete the privatization of Woori Financial Group by the end of June 2011 by seeking to sell its stake or have the group merge with other financial organizations.

The move is expected to encourage local and foreign lenders to join the M&A market, which many believe will expedite the reshaping of the local banking industry.

The decision came as part of the government’s long-term roadmap for Woori’s privatization announced Friday by the Public Fund Oversight Committee.

Under the plan, it will sell a certain amount of shares in the holding company or merge the nation’s second-largest financial services company with other financial groups with a shot at recouping taxpayer money.

The government will seek to sell Woori Investment & Securities along with the financial group in order to maximize the sales value. But it has decided to separately sell at least a 50-percent stake plus a share in Woori’s two regional banks — Kyongnam Bank and Kwangju Bank.

Currently, the state-run Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC) owns a 57-percent stake in Woori Finance, valued at 6.84 trillion won ($5.77 billion) based on Woori’s share prices.“After considering all the factors, we will push the privatization,” Min Sang-kee, co-chairman of the Public Fund Oversight Committee, said at a briefing. “We will try to complete the deal as soon as possible.”

The government said it will Monday begin the process to select three brokerages — two domestic firms and a foreign one — to manage the sale and come up with a shortlist of preferred bidders by the end of this year. It plans to select the final bidder by the first quarter of 2010 through a two-round process open to Korean and foreign companies, before confirming the new owner of the nation’s second-largest financial group, whose total assets are 325 trillion won, by June.

In the wake of the Asian financial crisis, the government in 1998 spent 12.8 trillion won in public funds to bail out Woori Bank and several financial companies that later merged into the first financial holding company in Korea in April 2001.

As part of collecting public funds, the KDIC started trimming its stakes at its initial public offering (IPO) in June 2002 and four block sales between September 2004 and April 2010 reduced its stake to 57 percent.

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) and its Chairman Chin Dong-soo were slammed for delaying the self-imposed deadline for the privatization plan, set for the end of June, which put a question mark over the government’s intention to return the leadership of Woori to the private sector.



내년 6월까지 우리금융 민영화

정부는 우리금융을 내년 상반기까지 민영화하기로 했다.
우리금융의 자회사인 경남은행과 광주은행은 분리 매각하고 우리투자증권은 우리금융과 묶어서 팔기로 했다.

공적자금관리위원회는 30일 금융감독원 대회의실에서 전체회의를 열고 이같은 우리금융 매각 방안을 의결했다.

현재 국영 예금보험공사가 우리금융의 지분 중 6조 8400억원에 달하는 57% 가지고 있다.