South Korea’s 10 financial holding groups’ combined net profit increased 31 percent last year, data showed Monday, but the upward trend is unlikely to continue next year. According to the watchdog Financial Supervisory Service, the combined net profit of Shinhan, KB, NH Nonghyup, Hana, Woori, BNK, DGB, JB, Korea Investment and Meritz came to 15.2 trillion won ($12.3 billion) in 2019. The figure ...

South Korea’s foreign exchange reserves last month posted the sharpest drop in over a decade due to the government’s intervention in the foreign exchange market and the strengthened US dollar value, the central bank said Friday. As of the end of March, the nation’s foreign exchange reserves stood at $400.21 billion, down $8.96 billion from a month earlier, according to the Bank of Korea. It fell...

A bond deal by South Korea’s biggest airline showed that while carriers pummeled by the coronavirus pandemic can still sell debt, they will need to pay a steep price. The fee Korean Air Lines paid underwriters to issue won notes jumped to a record 1.157percent, four times what it was charged in a similar deal in September. And an unusually numerous 15 sales managers took part in the offering thi...

The volume of proposed mergers and acquisitions in South Korea has shrunk to about half in the first quarter of 2020, reflecting the impact of the novel coronavirus, data showed Thursday. The first quarter saw 5.23 trillion won ($4.22 billion) worth of deals announced, falling 50.6 percent on-year, according to a league table by news outlet thebell. This comes as the coronavirus pandemic is cau...

US investment house BlackRock Fund Advisors has offloaded its 1.01 percent stake in South Korea’s game software developer NCSoft to cash out 129.57 billion won ($105.1 million), a filing showed Thursday. As a result, BlackRock Fund Advisors and its 13 specially related parties hold 6.05 percent voting rights in the company as of March 25 as a nonengagement shareholder. NCsoft share price rose 6....

NH Investment and Securities, a local brokerage firm under NH Financial Group, last year paid 123 million won ($99,600) in annual salary on average, higher than any company with assets over 10 trillion won, industry data showed Thursday. According to Infobigs, a local industry tracker, an employee at NH Investment and Securities received a paycheck higher than the average figure of Samsung Elect...

Offloading stakes in key affiliates seen as inevitable, but sales may face hurdles

Hana Bank said Wednesday that it has selected Korean actor Kim Soo-hyun as its new model for TV commercials. “Kim Soo-hyun embodies the bank’s global image,” said an official. “His strong public impression will boost our public relations move for overseas branches in Southeast Asian countries.” Kim previously modeled for Hana Financial Group in 2014. He will star in the bank’s new TV commercial...

Six major banks in South Korea paid a combined 4.7 trillion won ($3.86 billion) in dividends to shareholders last year, which was nearly 20 percent up from the previous year, their annual reports showed Tuesday. The total dividend payouts by KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Woori, Hana, Standard Chartered Bank Korea and Citibank Korea in 2019 marked the largest amount since 2016. Comparable data was only av...

South Korea’s financial regulator Monday cleared uncertainties, allowing the Korea Development Bank to take control of a local insurer unit for the time being and buy the time to sell it off. A private equity firm jointly created by KDB and Consus Asset Management -- which controls a combined 92.73 percent of KDB Life Insurance -- reached the end of a 10-year grace period before being regulated ...

South Korean credit card firms saw their combined net profit fall 5.3 percent in 2019 from a year earlier due mainly to increased loan-loss reserves and marketing spending, data showed Monday. The combined net profit of eight card issuers, including Shinhan Card Co., Samsung Card Co. and KB Kookmin Card Co., came to 1.64 trillion won ($1.3 billion) in 2019, compared with 1.73 trillion won in 201...

South Korea’s activist private equity fund Korea Corporate Governance Improvement on Friday vowed to restore Hanjin Group “back on track,” signaling its push for activism despite the Friday defeat. “We could feel the shareholders' desire to change Hanjin KAL’s management by the owner family,” the coalition led by KCGI wrote in a letter to shareholders. “The most crucial is for Hanjin Group to m...

Seoul-based Thelma Therapeutics said Friday it has closed a deal to buy 27 percent stake in Russian liver cancer therapy developer for 24.3 billion won ($20 million), to tap the overseas health care market. The stake was of NBT, a parent company that wholly owns radioembolization therapy device developer Bebig, both located in the Dubna Special Economic Zone on the northern outskirts of Moscow. ...

The Financial Supervisory Service on Thursday issued warnings to two major banking groups here -- Woori and Hana -- directing them to improve their overall transparency and corporate governance. The financial watchdog noted that Woori Financial Group’s board meeting minutes -- which serve as official legal records -- between January and September 2019 lacked transparency. The minutes were treat...

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