The financial authorities conditionally approved Woori Financial Group's acquisition of Tongyang and ABL Life Insurance.
According to the financial authorities on the 2nd, the Financial Services Commission held its regular meeting at 2 p.m. that day and final approved Woori Financial's subsidiary inclusion of Tongyang and ABL Life Insurance.
The Financial Services Commission imposed the condition that Woori Financial faithfully implement the internal control improvement plan and the medium- to long-term capital management plan it submitted, and report the implementation status to the Financial Supervisory Service every six months until the end of 2027. The Financial Services Commission noted, "Failure to properly fulfill this may lead to a correction order, and if the correction order is not properly implemented, a stock disposal order may be imposed."
Woori Financial signed a stock purchase agreement (SPA) last August to acquire 75.34% equity of Tongyang Life Insurance from China Multinational Insurance Group for 1.28 trillion won and 100% equity of ABL Life Insurance for 265.4 billion won, and applied for acquisition approval to the financial authorities on January 15.
However, the Financial Supervisory Service lowered Woori Financial's management evaluation grade to grade 3, which prevents the approval for subsidiary inclusion, prolonging the examination. The Financial Services Commission decided to approve the inclusion on the premise that Woori Financial continues its efforts to improve internal controls and soundness after reviewing the agenda in a subcommittee four times.
Woori Financial is expected to launch a consolidated insurance company around late July to early August. Once Woori Financial completes the acquisition of the insurance companies, it will be able to escape the abnormal revenue structure that relies on banks and leap into a comprehensive financial group. Woori Financial expects that when it acquires the insurance companies, it will reduce its dependence on banks from the existing 90% to about 80%, a decrease of 10 percentage points.