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November 19, 2009
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Woori Financial Group, one of Korea’s top three financial companies, is considering taking over a foreign bank to make inroads into the overseas market next year, according to the company’s chairman Lee Pal-seung. “About 90 percent of our assets are in the Korean market. We need to push into overseas markets,” Lee told correspondents of the Korean media in New York at a briefing about the company’s new “Global OK Service” in Manhattan. The service helps Korean-Americans buy Korean deposits and stocks. “Consider the cases of the entries of Citibank and Standard Chartered into the Korean market, it will be better to acquire a company in the market rather than to set up a branch,” he added. U.S.-based Citibank acquired KorAm Bank in 2004, and the U.K.-based Standard Chartered took over Korea First Bank in 2005 to set up SC First Bank. But Woori Finance is unlikely to take over a large-scale financial company. “I think some financial companies are too big to manage,” Lee said, citing the controversy over the state-run Korea Development Bank’s attempt last year to take over the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers. By Kim Won-bae [symoon@joongang.co.kr] |
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