Woori Financial Group enters securities industry after lengthy search

Lee Jung-soo, Woori Financial Group's vice president of strategy unit, speaks during a press meeting at the group's headquarters in Seoul, Friday. Courtesy of Woori Financial Group

Woori Financial Group is launching a mid-sized securities firm through the merger of its subsidiary Woori Investment Bank and Korea Foss Securities.

The group aims to grow the firm into one of the top 10 mega-sized investment banks within the next 10 years and strengthen its non-banking portfolio.

The group officially announced the merger at a press meeting, Friday. The group plans to launch the merged securities firm and commence business within the third quarter of this year, after obtaining approval from the Financial Services Commission.

"This is the result that best fits the group's capital market business strategies, fostering a leading securities firm with powerful corporate financing (from Woori) and digitalization (from Korea Foss Securities)," Lee Jung-Soo, vice president of the group's strategy unit, said.

Korea Foss Securities, which was selected as the target for the merger and acquisition (M&A), is currently the largest online fund specialized platform in Korea, selling more than 3,700 fund products. It has 280,000 individual customers with 6.5 trillion won in customer funds.

Woori Financial Group has been consistently pursuing M&As of securities firms to enter the securities business, a core non-banking sector. It also made efforts in Woori Investment Bank, as witnessed by the strengthening of the investment bank's capabilities, the 500 billion won paid-in capital increase and specialist recruitment.

The group envisions the firm to grow into a top 10 mega-sized investment bank within 10 years through organic growth as well as additional M&As of securities firms.

The name Woori Investment & Securities is being strongly considered for the new company. It was the name that the Woori Financial Group had used for its securities firm from 2005 to 2014. The group had withdrawn from the securities business by selling the firm to NH Financial Group.

"With the entry into the securities business, Woori Financial Group has completed a financial service system tailored to each stage of the corporate life cycle, spanning 'venture capital - capital - banking - securities - asset management - private equity - F&I.' This brings the group one step closer to rebuilding its strategic goal of becoming a prestigious corporate finance institution," Lee said.