The saga that has run for the past decade in Korea’s banking sector seems, finally, to be reaching its climax. Yesterday, Hana Bank, the country’s fourth biggest lender, said that it will pay up to W4.75 trillion $4.1 billion for US private equity firm Lone Star’s 51% stake in Korea Exchange Bank KEB. If successful, this will be Korea’s biggest ever bank acquisition.
Lone Star’s purchase of a stake in KEB in 2003 for $1.2 billion and its repeated failed attempts to sell it -- for instance to Kookmin Bank in 2006 and HSBC in 2008 -- has been a touchstone in several ways.
For international investors, it has aroused suspicions that...
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