Hana gets green light to buy KEB stake

Korea’s most bitterly fought private-equity exit may finally be imminent. As always, such a claim could turn out to be premature, but after several years of legal battles, regulatory indecision and failed attempts to sell its majority holding in Korea Exchange Bank KEB, Texas-based Lone Star looks set to move ahead with a deal originally agreed with Hana Financial Group in November 2010.

It would mark the end of a saga that for many Koreans was the most egregious instance of a foreign, predatory acquisition in the wake of the country’s financial crisis in the late 1990s and that for some overseas investors had come to represent Korea’s antipathy...