KDB said to be leading potential bidder for September sale of bank The financial authorities announced Tuesday that the state-controlled Woori Financial Group would be handed over to an investor through a bidding competition by September. The Public Fund Oversight Committee said that it would sell the nation’s largest financial group by assets in a “package deal.” The official announcement cam...

The country’s second largest refiner GS Caltex Co. announced Tuesday that it will raise the retirement age by two years and apply peak salary system from next year. Under the agreement GS Caltex reached with its labor union last month, the retirement age will be raised from 58 to 60 years of age from Jan. 1, 2012. With the peak salary system taking effect on the same date, the base pay for work...

NCsoft Corp., the country’s second-biggest online game publisher, said Tuesday it posted 155.4 billion won ($142.23 million) in sales and 46.1 billion won in operating profit in the first quarter, both figures down from the same period last year. In its quarterly earnings report, the Seoul-based firm said that its sales and operating profit slipped 7 percent and 40 percent year-on-year, respecti...

Local securities firms are bracing for the possibility of a liquidity crisis brought on by financial woes in the sluggish construction sector. The firms are closely monitoring the progress of a group of savings banks already suffering from overdue “project financing loans” issued to builders. The risk growing in the stock brokerage sector is due to asset-backed commercial papers, a type of secu...

Major securities companies are eager to recruit outside directors, mainly from government agencies with investigative power. Their recruitment practices have been regarded as a conventional strategy aimed at lobbying the agencies to minimize fallout from possible internal irregularities. According to sources in the stock brokerage industry, agencies whose former high-ranking officials are movin...

Lotte Shopping, Korea’s leading retail group, said Monday that it has been ranked the sixth-largest retailer worldwide by Forbes Magazine, joining the ranks of global top sellers. The Korean company runs chains of Lotte Department Store, Lotte Mart and Lotte Super. Tied with Chile’s Falabella, it ranked higher than U.S. giants such as Sears and Nordstrom and Japan’s Isetan Mitsukoshi. Forbes ha...

The Korea Communications Commission unveiled support measures Monday for mobile virtual network operators so that they can release telecom services that are 20 percent cheaper than what is now available. The state telecom regulator said SK Telecom, the country’s top mobile carrier, will provide the MVNOs with mobile phones until June 2012. It also said SKT will also help the MVNOs, which plan t...

The number of people working at small- and medium-sized enterprises increased by 3.47 million between 1999 and 2009, industry data showed Sunday. Under local regulations, SMEs are defined as companies with less than 1,000 employees and total assets less than 500 billion won ($458 million), and companies that meet the requirements but are affiliated to large companies are excluded from the catego...