Korea to auction Woori Finance stake in third sale attempt

South Korea plans to take bids for its stake in Woori Finance Holdings Co. in a third attempt to sell the nation’s largest financial company by assets.

The government will hold an international auction and announce details on the plan soon, Financial Services Commission Chairman Kim Seok Dong said in Seoul today. Local and foreign investors’ bids will be treated equally, he said.

The sale is part of President Lee Myung Bak’s 2007 election pledge to privatize companies the government bailed out more than a decade ago and his administration’s push to consolidate banks and boost their competitiveness. Previous attempts to sell Woori failed due to a lack of buyer interest in 2010 and last August, when it received only one bid.

Shares of Woori, whose businesses include banks, a brokerage and an insurer, rose as much as 2.9 percent to 12,550 won and traded at 12,400 won as of 9:55 a.m. in Seoul. The country’s benchmark Kospi index rose 0.4 percent. (Bloomberg)