Hana Bank to purchase Merrill Lynch shares worth 50 million dollars

Hana Financial Group, one of the largest financial firms in South Korea, intends to buy Merrill Lynch shares worth $50 million.

Photo: Hana Bank to purchase Merrill Lynch shares worth 50 million dollars

The group’s banking division, Hana Bank, will pay $50 per share from Singapore's Temasek Holdings.

Hana Financial Group Inc. is a South Korean holding company whose flagship subsidiary is Hana Bank, the third largest bank by asset value in South Korea.

As part of the conversion to a holding company, Hana Bank was delisted from the Korea Stock Exchange on November 28, 2005 and relisted as Hana Financial Group Inc. on December 12, 2005.

Hana Financial has a total of 10 subsidiaries. Apart from Hana Bank, other subsidiaries include Daehan Investment & Securities Co.

Hana Financial Group is the 3rd largest commercial banking group in South Korea (after Kookmin Bank and Woori Bank) and was established in 1971. The bank reached its current size by four mergers since 1998; the two largest are with Boram Bank in 1999 and with Seoul Bank in 2002. The largest single shareholder at time of listing was U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs which purchased 9.4% of the new entity in October; the second largest was Singapore's Temasek Holdings with 9.06%.and third largest Germany's leading Insurance corporation Allianz AG with 5.3%. The latter has acquired Hana Bank's 50% stake in their South-Korean asset management joint venture in the third quarter of 2005. A life insurance joint venture between Allianz and Hana is still in place. Though not a single entity, together the Han family of Korea also owns a significant stake in the financial group