Woori Financial Group on Friday posted another earning shock in its second quarterly report this year, marked by disastrous contraction in net profit.
Woori Financial earned 148 billion won ($130 million) in net profit in the second quarter, down about 30 percent from last year. Its second-quarter earnings fell 51.4 percent to 358.3 billion won.
The damage comes more lucid when combined with the state-controlled financial group’s first quarterly report. In the first half, the company’s net profit dropped by 63 percent year-on-year.
Woori Financial Group’s quarterly report also stated that its net interest margin reached about 2.2 percent, down from 2.18 percent in the first quarter.
Woori Financial said it allocated a one-off expense over corporate tax related to its brokerage unit sales, and its profit margin is on the decline amid the low rate trend.
But analysts noted that the disaster was heralded by large defaults from economy-sensitive enterprises, including SSangyong Engineering & Construction Co. and STX PanOcean.
Meanwhile, state financial authorities are set to sell the state-controlled group in three smaller chunks ― the banks, banking and brokerage ― by 2014. The state previously failed three times to spot buyers to purchase the group as a whole.
By Chung Joo-won (
joowonc@heraldcorp.com)
