LG Card, one of Korea's biggest credit card companies with around 19 million cardholders, has become the first Korean entity to complete a cross-border securitization in 2003. Bank of America acted as lead manager and swap provider on the $300 million deal - LG's second international offering following a $500 million transaction in December 2001.
It will come as something of a relief to all parties that the deal has finally closed, given that it took over a month to get regulatory approval. This delay was probably anticipated however, with regulators keeping a watchful eye over credit card issuers since default rates started to rise markedly in the second half of 2002....
