Woori Finance Holdings Co. said Thursday it has named Lee Soon-woo, the incumbent head of its banking unit, as the new chief to spearhead South Korea's top banking group.
Woori Finance said that it has nominated the 63-year-old Lee, president of Woori Bank, as the group's new chief to replace Chairman Lee Pal-seung who offered to step down on April 12.
Lee's nomination needs to receive approval from the group's board members and shareholders. Lee will also continue to serve as the head of the banking unit, officials said.
Lee's predecessor offered to leave the top post roughly a year before his official term ends amid apparent pressure from the government, which is seeking to resume the privatization of Woori Finance.
The financial watchdog earlier said that it plans to unveil the road map to restart the sale of Woori Finance by the end of June, whose sales have faltered three times so far.
The government has injected more than 12 trillion won ($10.7 billion) of taxpayers' money to save Woori Finance in a bid to rescue the company from near bankruptcy in the aftermath of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.
Woori Finance was established in 2001 after merging four troubled banks and one merchant bank in the aftermath of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. Woori Finance is Korea's first financial services company.
Korea's banking sector is in the process of selecting new heads as heads from KB Financial Group Inc. and NongHyup Financial Group offered to step down recently amid the financial regulator's move to reshuffle the industry.
Shin Je-yoon, the chairman of the Financial Services Commission, earlier made it clear that banking chiefs need to be people who are "on the same wavelength" as President Park Geun-hye.
KB Financial Group is not a state-invested banking group, but its chief Euh Yoon-dae, known as a close aide to former President Lee Myung-bak, expressed his intent to resign when his term ends in July. (Yonhap News)
