Kookmin Bank

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Kookmin Bank

Type	Public company (KSE: 060000, NYSE: KB)
Founded	1963
Headquarters	Seoul, Korea
Key people	Kang Chung Won, CEO
Industry	Finance
Products	Financial Services
Website	www.kbstar.com

Korean name
Hangul:	국민은행
Hanja:	國民銀行
Revised Romanization:	Gungmin Eunhaeng
McCune-Reischauer:	Kungmin Ŭnhaeng

Kookmin Bank (hangul:국민은행) is the largest bank by both asset value and market capitalization in South Korea.

The bank is led by Kang Chung-Won who previously worked for Seoulbank and oversaw its sale to competitor Hana Bank before moving to Kookmin.

Kookmin intended to takeover Korea Exchange Bank, a government owned bank with offices in foreign countries, by the end of 2006, to facilitate foreign exchange and corporate banking (as in contrast Kookmin is more well known for its consumer banking services). The deal to buy Korea Exchange Bank was contingent on not finding any evidence of criminality when the Lone Star Private Equity Fund purchased Korea Exchange Bank in 2003. However as of December 2006, the takeover will not happen having been cancelled by Lone Star.

Kookmin had profits of Won 2,950,000,000,000 last year.

source: "The Monday Interview: Empire-builder with designs on a global 'super-bank'" in Monday June 26, 2006 issue of Financial Times newspaper p. 6 (possibly available online with subscription from www.ft.com

According to the company website, Kookmin EPS in 2006 was 6977 won, and the dividend paid per share was 550 Won per share. In September 2006 the share price was 73,000 Won