South Korea resurrects $5.3 billion Woori stake sale

South Korea's top regulator said Sunday it would receive preliminary bids for a 6 trillion won controlling stake in Woori Finance Holdings by July 27, after two previous attempts to privatize the group ...

South Korea said it is putting its six trillion won ($5.3 billion) majority stake in the nation's biggest financial group up for sale, its third attempt to privatise Woori Finance Holdings.The Financial Services Commission (FSC) cited a better financial environment to attract bidders for its 57 percent stake after sale attempts in 2010 and 2011 failed for lack of interest.The government will issue the sale notice Monday and accept initial bids by July 27. It will choose a preferred bidder after accepting final bids later this year, the commission said in a statement.

Two South Korean companies said Friday they had submitted preliminary bids to buy a controlling stake in Hynix Semiconductor, the world's second-largest memory chip maker.Top mobile carrier SK Telecom and shipbuilder STX Group sent letters of intent to creditors-turned-shareholders to buy a 15 percent stake before the deadline Friday afternoon.The creditors want to select a preferred bidder in August and complete the sale of their combined stake worth 2.4 trillion won ($2.3 billion) by the end of the year.

The troubled economy of North Korea (DPRK) may be the first casualty of further escalation. Despite plenty of wartime bluster coming out of Pyongyang about the so-called "puppet government" of the South, DPRK actually relies on its neighbor for a huge source of income.

South Korea's president said Monday that creating jobs and taming inflation were his top economic priorities this year, vowing to spend more than $8.6 billion on expanding employment.Lee Myung-Bak, in a New Year speech, said his administration would create more than 70,000 quality jobs for young people over the next 12 months."This year's budget is focused on creating jobs and we will spend more than 10 trillion won ($8.6 billion) to make more jobs," he said.

ETF Database submits: South Korea is home to one of the world’s most unique and promising economies, thriving off of its status as a tech leader as well as proximity and strong relationships with many of Asia’s rapidly-expanding emerging markets. But constantly looming over South Korea is the unstable relationship with its neighbor to the north, one of the world’s most closed and volatile regimes in North Korea.