By Kim Jae-won
The financial regulator said Tuesday it will announce Woori Bank’s sale plan later this month, as it attempts to offload its controlling stake in the lender after failing four times previously to do so.
The Financial Services Commission (FSC) said that eight commissioners of the Public Funds Management Committee, an in-house organization, agreed to decide how to sell the state-owned lender by the end of this month. The state-run Korea Deposit Insurance Corp. (KDIC) owns a 51 percent stake in Woori.
“Commissioners made an agreement to announce the sale plan this month based on data from the KDIC regarding demands for the bank in the market,” said the FSC in a statement.
However, the regulator did not unveil the plan in detail, saying the committee will review more matters before announcing it.
“Nothing has been decided on the sale plan at this time. The discussion is still ongoing,” said Jeon Yo-seob, an FSC director.
This is the fifth time that the regulator has pushed to sell its stake. The latest failure came in November when the deal collapsed as only one investor ― Anbang Insurance from China ― showed interest in the bank, which did not fulfill the multiple bidder criteria.
Market watchers said the government may divide the stake this time, and sell to multiple investors, rather than giving the whole stake to a single investor.
“There is no way except to divide the stake because few investors want to buy the stake as a whole,” said an executive of a local financial group, asking not to be named.
Shares of Woori were traded at 9,450 won ($8.3) on Tuesday afternoon, up 40 won, or 0.43 percent from the previous close. Its market cap reached 6.4 trillion won, which means the stake on sale will be around 3.3 trillion won, not counting a premium for managerial rights.
The government has searched for investors both at home and abroad for Woori. Park Sang-yong, head of the public funds committee, met officials from sovereign funds in the Middle East earlier this year, asking them to buy a stake in the lender.
Woori was established in 1999 under the name of Hanbit in aftermath of the Asian financial crisis by merging Hanil Bank and the Commercial Bank of Korea. The government has injected about 12 trillion won in the lender, but only recouped slightly more than half of that investment.