Top Personnel Changes

Park B.W. former Vice Minister of Finance-Economy takes over as chairman of Woori Financial Holdings Co.

Chairman Park Byung-won of the Woori Financial Holdings Co. said he will positively consider expanding into consumer banking and insurance businesses this year.
In his inauguration speech, the former Vice Minister of Finance and Economy, on April 2 said he plans to strengthen the financial group's non-banking financial end of the business to make the group a fully integrated financial entity. The statement is taken as an indication that the financial holding company will acquire a capital and insurance firms to make them part of its new growth engines.
The new chairman means to focus on the investment banking and credit card operations to foster them as new growth engines for the group in bid to make Woori a first-class global financial group on par with Citi Group and Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp(HSBC).
The new chairman, who formerly was a career bureaucrat, said continuous growth, profit-oriented management, strengthened manpower resources and social service as the key base of his strategy to ensure the growth of the financial group.
Chairman Park said the performance evaluation on employees will be expanded to include the contribution to the group's business growth and profit, adding that it is not fair to include their performance records in the previous companies. He also said he will try to weed out waste in the operation of each affiliate company including overlapping of roles for affiliates. The overlapping units will be integrated to save costs and for effectiveness.
He was officially inaugurated as the third chairman of the financial group, succeeding Hwang Young-gi, the second chairman.
In the meantime, Park Hae-choon, who recently became president of Woori Bank, said he will strengthen the marketing of its credit card business, while focusing on risk management. He said the bank increased its assets by 46 trillion won last year, a stupendous annual growth and now is the time to focus on minimizing non-performing assets. He will set up the risk management headquarters and also run policies that will be very selective about the overseas operation of the bank with intensive analysis of profitability.
He will also concentrate on the credit card business with strong marketing. He said the credit card will have a new design under his effort to make it a credit card good enough that represents the credit card industry.
He also said the bank will not have a vice president to make the decision-making process simple, just like the Woori Financial Holding Co. doing away with the position of vice chairman as agreed with Chairman Park. He said he will be at the forefront of an effort to turning around the atmosphere at the bank ruffled by the change at the top.
As of the end of June, 2006, the group comprised of nine affiliates and 12 subsidiaries with total capital of 10.6 trillion won and market value of 15.314,3 trillion won as of August 16 with 22,000 employees. Its combined assets totaled 187 trillion won and 218 trillion won including trust accounts, the largest in the country. Its major affiliates include Woori Bank with total assets of 162 trillion won, Kwangju Bank with total assets of 12 trillion won and Kyungnam Bank with total assets of 17 trillion won. The largest among its non-banking affiliates include Woori Investment and Securities with total assets of 10 trillion won, and Woori Credit Swiss Asset Management with assets of 15 trillion won.
The group will lead the country's financial sector as a model financial holding company with advanced financial commodities and services with an aim to make a huge contribution to the growth of the nation's financial industry.
In order to position the group to achieve its operational objectives, the group set up a various programs ranging from personnel recruitment and training to the development of new financial products and services and implemented them.
The group hired MBAs at home and abroad and sent them to universities in foreign countries including those in the top 30 in the United States and work at foreign financial institutions such as Macquarie Bank for them to become experienced bankers. The group introduced a systematic personnel performance evaluation to make rewards for hard work compensated justly for the expansion of performance result based culture.
The group also increased its social service activities centered on the one-company and one-village campaign and the "Together Woori."Officers and staff volunteered to donate funds to the Woori Love Fund and presented funds to social welfare facilities and poor neighbors. nw

Chairman Park Byung-won of the Woori Financial Holdings Co.