Korea to offer $6.16bln Woori stake late October

Government to Woori stake as it may use divestment to create a dominant financial holding company.

The South Korean government will likely launch the sale of its 57% stake in Woori Finance Holdings Co. valued at around KRW6.91 trillion ($6.16 billion) around the end of this month, the Financial Services Commission said Monday.

The authority, South Korea's financial regulator, said in a report submitted to the National Assembly that the government aims to have a shortlist of bidders for the stake in Woori, the country's largest financial holding company by assets.

"We will consider the goals of maximizing recovery of public funds, fast privatization and the proper development of the domestic financial industry and proceed with the sale," the FSC said in the report.

The government hopes to sell all or most of its stake in Woori, a holding company established in 2001 to oversee troubled banks in the aftermath of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis when the government pumped tens of billions of bailout dollars into the private sector. It hired J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.  Daewoo Securities Co. and Samsung Securities Co. to handle the sale and aims to name a preferred bidder for the stake by the first quarter of 2011.

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