Cleary Gottlieb represented Woori Finance Holdings Co. and the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation (“KDIC”) in a $282 million Rule 144A / Reg. S block sale by the KDIC of 45 million common shares of Woori Finance Holdings, representing 5.7% of its outstanding common shares, to institutional investors. Credit Suisse First Boston, Dongwon Securities, Lehman Brothers and Samsung Securities were the brokers for the block sale, which closed today.
Woori Finance Holdings is Korea’s first financial holding company, with operations that include the second-largest commercial bank in Korea, in terms of total assets, deposits and the number of branches. Woori Finance Holdings’ subsidiaries engage in a broad range of businesses, including commercial banking, credit cards, capital markets activities, international banking, asset management and bancassurance. Woori Finance Holdings was established as a financial holding company in March 2001 to consolidate the Korean government’s interest in a number of distressed financial institutions in the wake of the financial crisis in Korea in the late 1990s. The KDIC still owns 80.2% of Woori Finance Holdings’ outstanding common shares.