[Global Finance Awards] KB Financial Group chair Yoon Jong-kyoo’s aggressive M&As bear fruit

Since taking office in November 2014, Yoon Jong-kyoo, chairman of KB Financial Group, has turned KB Financial Group -- then reeling from a massive information leak -- into a top integrated financial services provider in South Korea, both in size and quality.

Yoon’s aggressive takeovers following his pledge to strengthen non-banking units’ performance have since proven successful.

KB Financial Group‘s net profit has increased 50 percent in two years, to 2.1 trillion won ($1.93 billion) in 2016 from 1.4 trillion won in 2014. The net profit in the first half of 2017 came to 1.9 trillion won.

As of June 2017, the financial group’s net asset jumped 37 percent to 422 trillion won, from 308 trillion won as of the end of 2014.

The group‘s profitability has also improved. Both the return on asset and return on equity doubled. The cumulative ROA jumped to 0.96 percent in the first half of 2017, from 0.54 percent as of 2014, while the cumulative ROE came to 11.76 percent up from 5.26 percent as of 2014.

The financial soundness has also improved. KB Financial Group’s allowance for credit losses more than halved in two years, to 540 billion won in 2016 from 1.23 trillion won in 2014.

These came amid KB Financial Group’s acquisition of financial firms, such as damage insurer LIG Insurance in June 2015 and Hyundai Securities in May 2016, now known as KB Insurance and KB Securities, respectively.

During Yoon’s tenure, the non-banking units under KB Financial Group took up 37 percent of net profit of the group as of the first half of 2017. The proportion has shown a gradual rise, from 29.5 percent in 2014.

Moreover, Yoon accelerated the push to expand the business overseas. KB Financial Group penetrated into countries in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, for retail banking and microfinance. The group has also moved to facilitate corporate investment banking business in Hong Kong, New York and London, by transforming overseas corporates into branches.

Under Yoon‘s leadership, the group launched mobile platforms, dubbed Liiv, to adopt digital services for local retail banking, post-retirement planning, property sales and mortgage loans.

Born in 1955, Yoon was formerly a banker and an accountant. Yoon joined KB Kookmin Bank as a vice president in 2002 and left the bank in 2004. Yoon returned to the banking group in 2010 as a chief financial officer.

He received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Sungkyunkwan University. He was also certified as a public accountant in Korea in 1980.

Yoon began serving his second three-year term as a chairman of KB Financial Group from November. Meanwhile, Yoon handed the post of chairman and chief executive of KB Kookmin Bank down to Hur Yin.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)