The Finance Ministry is considering selling some of its dominant stake in the Industrial Bank of Korea in an apparent bid to raise state funds for President Park Geun-hye’s policy agenda, government officials said Monday.
While the ministry holds a 65.1 percent stake in IBK, it is seeking to dispose of about 15 percent and maintain its position as majority shareholder with a controlling stake of about 50.1 percent, according to officials.
To attract investors, the state-funded IBK, in coordination with the Finance Ministry, will hold a series of investor relations sessions in New York City, London and Hong Kong this week.
“The IR tour is not an ordinary case. It is designed to find strategic investors with huge capital who will become a major shareholder of IBK,” said a senior official.
He said the IR sessions could ignite a resumption of the authorities’ earlier stake-disposal project, adding that several director generals from the Finance Ministry will lead the tour with IBK executives.
After the sale plan for IBK shares was again nullified in 2006, there was no such official move during the Lee Myung-bak administration.
Among the other shareholders are the Korea Finance Corp. (8.9 percent) and the Export-Import Bank of Korea (2.3 percent), both of which are state-run agencies.
The stake sale ― if feasible ― will likely be pushed forward via a block sale, under which remaining shares will not be affected, as the price per share for the targeted 15 percent stake is supposed to be fixed.
A banker in the market said some stake sales of public agencies appear to be urgent in terms of securing funds to implement pledges of the Park administration.
IBK had been mentioned as a target for privatization, along with Woori Financial Group and KDB Financial Group.
While financial authorities are set to unveil measures to privatize the public funds-injected Woori Financial, the state-controlled KDB Financial has shifted its policy direction under the Park Geun-hye administration away from privatization.
KDB chairman Hong Ky-tack, who took office in April, said that Korea had lost momentum for the privatization of KDB Financial “due to a worsening situation in the global economy.”
Hong has stressed that the group will continue to take on the role of “big brother” among several state-run firms such as the Korea Finance Corp. and the Export-Import Bank of Korea.
By Kim Yon-se (
kys@heraldcorp.com)
