STATE AGENCY EYEING SALE OF SAMSUNG LIFE SHARES

South Korean state restructuring agency Seoul Guarantee Insurance Co has said that it will sell its 3.5m shares in local life company Samsung Life as soon as the assurer lists on the Korean Stock Exchange. Agency president Park Hae-chun said that several corporate pension funds in the US, as well as Japanese investors, have shown interest in the holding, which Seoul Guarantee acquired in 1999. Samsung Life is reportedly close to listing, as local regulators are understood to have resolved a long-standing wrangle over how the company’s shareholders and policyholders should split the potentially huge capital gains generated by going public. Samsung Life originally re-evaluated their assets in 1990 ahead of its expected listings, but has subsequently seen its initial public offering postponed time and again by the disputed capital gains issue. The latest initiative to enable their public listings follows the establishment in January of an FSC transition team with a remit to set standards for the stockmarket listing of local life assurers.