Low-credit borrowers sought more loans at savings banks in the first quarter, pushing up the number of lendees at the secondary banks to a four-year on-quarter high, a savings banks' association said Monday.In the January-March period, the number of people who took loans from savings banks jumped 7.41 percent, or 112,886 borrowers, to 1.63 million from 1.52 million a quarter earlier, according to data from the Korea Federation of Savings Bank. It was the biggest on-quarter jump since the first q

South Korean shares sharply increased on Monday as better-than-expected job data from the United States improved investor sentiment here, analysts said. The local currency rose against the U.S. dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index added 25.43 points, or 1.3 percent, to finish at 1,988.54. Trading volume was moderate at 332 million shares worth 4.23 trillion won ($3.68 billion), with gainers beating losers 530 to 278.The world's largest economy announced the data on Friday that

[THE INVESTOR] The prosecution on July 11 indicted National Agricultural Cooperative Federation chairman Kim Byeong-won on charges of breaking election laws regarding public entities. The NACF is Korea’s largest agroindustry body that counts NongHyup Financial Group among its affiliates. Kim is the fifth NACF chief to be elected into office, and the fifth elected-chairman to come under investigation. The NACF chairman attends at prosecutor's office / The InvestorKim is suspected for breaking ele

[THE INVESTOR] MBK Partners has recouped a record amount from its investments over the past two years since July 2014, industry sources said Sunday.Since June 2014, MBK Partners -- South Korea’s largest private equity firm -- managed to recoup $3.3 billion by selling equity and driving up dividends from its past investments. If returns from other projects MBK has invested in are included -- such as with South Korea’s National Pension Fund, Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and the Canada Pension Plan

[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s National Pension Service -- the world’s third-largest public pension fund -- has selected Blackrock and GCM Grosvenor as general partners for managing 1 trillion won ($872 million) worth of hedge funds. This is 0.2 percent of the 500 trillion won of NPS’ assets under management. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset management firm with more than $ 4.65 trillion assets under management. GCM has invested over $45 billion in hedge funds, private equity, real estate an

[THE INVESTOR] LINE Corp. has set the price for its initial public offering at the top of its marketing range, raising up to 132.8 billion yen ($1.3 billion), the company said in a regulatory filing Monday in Tokyo. The popular mobile messaging service, owned by Korean Internet giant Naver, will sell 35 million shares at 3,300 yen per share. Another 5.25 million shares will be sold through a greenshoe option, allowing it to increase the amount of stock sold. The company had initially set the pri

There are not many well-known software companies in Korea with diversified utility and functional programs ranging from browsers, portals to content, advertising and security that can match the scale of Silicon Valley.However, ESTsoft, which is widely known for its ALTools package utility software, is one of the few local software companies trying to stand out in the consumer tech market dominated by either manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, or software giants like Goo

South Korea's four major banks likely posted an 11 percent on-year jump in their first-half net profits on their efforts to boost profits in the nonbanking sector and less exposure to debt-ridden companies, industry people said Monday. The country's four leading lenders -- Shinhan Financial Group, KB Financial Group, Hana Financial Group and Woori Bank – reported 3.883 trillion won ($3.4 billion) in combined net profit for the January-June period, up from 3.494 trillion won a year earlier, accor

[THE INVESTOR] The National Pension Service padded up its portfolio with auto, chemical and pharmaceutical stocks while offloading food and textile shares this year, data showed on July 10. According to the latest financial industry data, of the companies in which the NPS holds 5 percent or more stake, 135 saw an increase during the first six months of the year. The figures are based on the NPS’ portfolio as of end-June. National Pension ServiceOf these, 13 are in the automotive industry, 12 in

Both the volume and face value of damaged banknotes found in the first half of the year dropped from six months earlier, the central bank said Monday.In the January-June period, the face value of damaged banknotes exchanged at local banks, including the Bank of Korea, came to 1.51 trillion won ($1.31 billion), down 8.8 percent from the second half of 2015, according to the BOK.They will still cost tens of billions of won to be replaced, one of the reasons for the central bank's ongoing feasibili

South Korea will resume the process of selling its majority stake in Woori Bank in the third quarter to help recover public funds after four failed attempts to privatize the state bank since 2010, people familiar with the matter said Monday. In a meeting held last week, the public funds management committee under the Financial Services Commission reconfirmed the government's stance to privatize Woori Bank and retrieve public money injected into the bank during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, a

On July 5, the Korean government raised the minimum amount of electricity that generation companies should produce from renewable sources to 5 percent of each generator’s annual output for 2018, 6 percent for 2019 and 7 percent for 2020, a 0.5-1.0 percentage-point increase from its previous targets under the Renewable Portfolio Standard. The government also said that it aims to boost generators’ direct sales of renewable-sourced electricity to residential and industrial consumers. These initiati

On July 4, Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced that foreign direct investment commitments in the first six months of this year increased by 18.6 percent from a year earlier to $10.5 billion, equal to 0.8 percent of 2015 GDP. This is credit positive for Korea (Aa2 stable) because, combined with government initiatives to restructure the Korean economy, these commitments will support economic growth, which has been negatively affected by dampened global demand. Total FDI commit

[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s National Pension Service -- the world’s third-largest public pension fund -- has selected Blackrock and GCM Grosvenor as general partners for managing 1 trillion won worth of hedge funds.This is 0.2 percent of the 500 trillion won (US$428.2 billion) of NPS’ assets under management. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset management firm that more than US$ 4.65 trillion AUM. GCM has invested over US$45 billion in hedge funds, private equity, real estate and infrastruct