In a groundbreaking move for the Korean financial services industry, Shinhan Bank has taken advantage of its financial holding company structure to buy a broker.
Shinhan's stock was up 10% as news broke that it had bought 30% of Good Morning Securities from a group of private equity investors. It will merge it with its own, much smaller, Shinhan Securities and by doing so, control around 45% of the new entity, which will be called Shinhan Good Morning Securities.
Shinhan will pay around $300 million for the stake. The entity will remain listed.
One interesting aspect of this is that Korea's somewhat sketchy takeover code means that a general offer does not have to be...
