The next chief financial regulator is expected to push forward privatization of Woori Financial Group amid lawmakers’ movement to retrieve taxpayers’ money, which was injected into the group.

As Kim Seok-dong, chairman of the Financial Services Commission, recently expressed his intention to resign, the incoming Park Geun-hye administration is poised to appoint his successor as the chief regulator.

Kim had maintained his position that Woori Financial should be sold through a “block deal,” under which the government will hand over all of the financial group’s subsidiaries to an investor.

But Kim’s Woori sale project ultimately failed even though the state-funded group had been put up for auction several times. The key problem was Woori’s huge asset value, which made it difficult to find a preferred bidder.

Woori Financial is the nation’s largest financial services company with total assets exceeding 400 trillion won ($370 billion). The government injected 12.7 trillion won in taxpayers’ money into the group in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis.

For a revised sale plan, FSC officials have been in talks with lawmakers and the presidential transition team.

The ruling Saenuri Party is calling for the FSC to sell South Gyeongsang Province-based Kyongnam Bank, a subsidiary of Woori Financial, separately to an investor in the province ― as a “split-based” sale project.

The main opposition Democratic United Party is also reportedly contacting policymakers. The liberal party wants an investor in the Honam region to take over South Jeolla Province-based Kwangju Bank, a unit of Woori Financial.

On Monday, an analyst at Shinyoung Securities raised the possibility that Woori Investment & Securities will be placed in the mergers and acquisitions market this year.

In a research report, he picked KB Financial Group and Hyundai Motor Group as potential bidders for the financial group’s brokerage unit.

As another step to revitalize the sale plan, the state-run Korea Deposit Insurance Corp., the biggest shareholder of Woori Financial, is seeking to revise the memorandum of understanding ― which was signed 12 years ago ― with the financial group.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)