The Financial Supervisory Service will conduct a regulatory inquiry into KDB Daewoo Securities, a brokerage unit of the state-controlled KDB Financial Group, for the next three weeks.The financial regulator said it has dispatched about 20 inspectors to the Yeouido, Seoul, headquarters of KDB Daewoo Securities, which holds the No. 1 position in Korea’s securities market.This marks the first time in about three years for the brokerage house to be subject to a sector-wide probe by the FSS.A key reg

April 21, 2013

Korea’s securities regulators will be entitled to investigate alleged stock manipulation cases with “special criminal authority” under the Park Geun-hye administration’s commitment to weeding out unfair trading.The government unveiled policies Thursday to grant criminal authority to Finance Services Commission investigators monitoring the brokerage industry and some nongovernmental inspectors at the Financial Supervisory Service.“The authority allows the securities inspectors to immediately hand

April 18, 2013

Short selling, a speculative stock investment technique, has come under the spotlight in the financial market as a pharmaceutical-oriented company CEO recently argued that the firm’s shares were hit by foreign speculators.The Financial Supervisory Service and the Korea Exchange launched their review as to whether there is an urgent necessity to issue a ban on short selling of “each company’s shares.”A short-selling investor seeks short-term gains by issuing “sell” orders with borrowed stocks: Th

April 17, 2013

The Cabinet on Tuesday approved the Finance Ministry’s stimulus package worth 20.3 trillion won ($17.9 billion) to revitalize the sluggish economy and boost exporters hit hard by the weaker yen caused by Japan’s monetary easing.The package highlights economic policymakers’ project to draw a supplementary budget totaling 17.3 trillion won, which marks the second-highest figure in history following the record of 28.4 trillion won in 2009 under the Lee Myung-bak administration.The other 3 trillion

April 16, 2013

Financial regulators pledged to enhance accounting oversight of non-listed big enterprises during its report to the National Policy Committee of the National Assembly on Tuesday.The policy is a development from an earlier movement by the Finance Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service to take stern punitive measures against stock manipulators.“Financial authorities will secure legal and systematic grounds to weed out fraudulent accounting practices,” said FSC chairman Shin Je-y

April 16, 2013

The National Pension Service is set to tighten its control on chaebol as the revised bill on the “10 percent rules” will likely pass through the plenary session of the National Assembly soon.The revised bill on the capital market involves financial authorities’ policy to allow the nation’s three major public funds to hold a 10 percent stake or more in a company ― as an exception from other stock investors.The bill, which recently worked through the National Policy Committee of the National Assem

April 15, 2013

Five big enterprises saw their “certification of excellence in fair trade” withdrawn after being named to have engaged in irregular practices including price fixing.The Fair Trade Commission said Sunday that it has downgraded the fair trade assessments on POSCO, POSCO C&C, Samsung Construction & Trade Corp., Hyundai Mobis and Shinsegae.While 27 companies were granted the certification from the antitrust regulator at the end of last year, the five players have been excluded from the fair trader l

April 14, 2013

 Fears of a massive restructuring are again lingering in the local construction industry as leading contractors are known to have logged steep losses in the first quarter amid a protracted industry downturn, data showed Sunday.    The combined operating profit of eight listed construction companies here is estimated at 197.7 billion won (US$174.9 million) for the January-March quarter, down 75.2 percent from a year ago, according to the data compiled by local corporate information tracker FnGuid

April 14, 2013

The state-controlled KDB Financial Group has shifted its policy direction under the Park Geun-hye administration away from privatization.The future business policies of KDB Financial can be seen via the inaugural speech of its new chairman Hong Ky-ttack, who took office this week.Hong said the financial group would bolster its long-standing role as the nation’s leading provider of policy loans for state projects.His remarks could mean that the Park government has scrapped the earlier project of

April 10, 2013

South Korea’s financial regulator said Tuesday that it has instructed commercial banks to roll over their loans issued to companies operating at the inter-Korean Gaeseong Industrial Complex.The Financial Supervisory Service’s regulatory policy came after North Korea suspended operations of the complex by withdrawing most of its workers in the North’s border city between Monday and Tuesday.“In a bid to minimize losses to South Korean companies operating in Gaeseong, banks will abstain from retrie

April 9, 2013