November 27, 2024

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The headquarters of Hana Financial Group in Seoul (Hana Financial Group)

US investment firm Capital Group has increased its stake in Hana Financial Group from the previous 5.08 percent to 5.55 percent, becoming the Korean financial giant’s third-largest shareholder.

Following the 5.08 percent stake purchase in February, the US firm announced its additional stake purchase of 0.47 percent last week.

With the latest purchase, Capital Group becomes the third-largest shareholder after the National Pension Service with 8.78 percent and BlackRock with 6.19 percent.

Capital Group, an asset management company with $3 trillion worth of assets under management, has a focus on long-term investments.

According to sources, the stake purchase included nonvoting shares only.

Hana Financial Group announced a 22 percent increase in its net profit for the first quarter this year, thanks to a significant surge in non-interest income which reached 779 billion won ($580 million) -- the highest quarterly figure in five years, and a 53 percent increase from the previous year.

Net income for the January-March period amounted to 1.1 trillion won, up from 902 billion won on year.

After the US firm bought the additional shares, Hana Financial Group Chairman Ham Young-joo met with Capital Group officials on Tuesday with Financial Supervisory Service Gov. Lee Bok-hyun. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the "Invest K-finance: Singapore IR 2023" event in Singapore.

According to Hana officials, the top executives talked about the group’s financial soundness and shareholder return policy, among others.

Capital Group also recently increased its stake in JB Financial Group from 5.11 percent to 5.55 percent.

The largest shareholder of JB Financial Group is Samyang Corp., which holds a 14.61 percent stake, followed by Align Partners Capital Management at 14.06 percent, OK Financial Group at 10.21 percent, the National Pension Service at 8.45 percent and Capital Group at 5.55 percent.

Industry insiders say these investments show that the recent collapse of small and midsize banks in the US has not deterred a major US asset management firm from investing in Korean financial holding companies.

Meanwhile, Capital Group also reduced its stake in Korean companies. Its stake in SK hynix went down from 5.05 percent to 4.3 percent and those in DL E&C were cut from 5.04 percent to 3.96 percent.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)