Life Insurers’ Listing Expected to Get Nod
By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) is expected to approve the much-awaited revision of securities rules today, setting up life insurance firms to list their shares on the stock exchange.
Stock market regulators said the FSC will hold a session for approval of the regulations for the listing of life insurers which have sought to raise capital through the stock market for the past 18 years.
If financial regulators approve the revised regulations, life insurers will be able to list their stocks beginning as early as November, officials from the Korea Exchange (KRX) and FSS said.
In 1989, Kyobo Life Insurance reassessed its assets as a condition for the listing of its shares on the exchange. But Kyobo and other life insurance firms couldn't list their shares due to dispute as to whether they should share gains from the listing with their policyholders.
An advisory panel under the KRX recently concluded policyholders are not entitled to gains from the listing because they are more like creditors, not shareholders.
However, civic groups have argued that policyholders were eligible to profit sharing as they contributed to the growth of life insurance firms.
A number of life insurance firms, including Samsung Life, Kyobo Life and Hungkuk Life, satisfy conditions for listing.
Samsung Life Insurance is not in any hurry to list its shares, but the stock market is paying keen attention to it. Its unlisted shares trade at around 560,000 won per share on the over-the-counter market, but if listed, they are expected to rise to at least 700,000 won. Kyobo Life Insurance shares are also expected to soar by three or four times from the current 130,000 won.
FSC Chairman Yoon Jeung-hyun has pressed ahead with the plan to allow the listing of life insurance firms.
The association of life insurance firms earlier this month came up with a compromise plan for life insurance firms to contribute a total of 1.5 trillion won to a public funds in exchange for the listing of life insurance firms.
Civic groups, however, said that they will take legal action against life insurance firms that list their shares without sharing profits with policyholders.
A committee jointly set up by civic groups to block the listing of life insurance firms plans to file complaints with the prosecution against FSC Chairman Yoon accusing him of dereliction of duty.
Civic groups are arguing that the FSC is hurriedly wrapping up what they call a plot to list life insurance firms without compensating policyholders in an appropriate manner.