Deals
Korea Should Spurn Woori Bids by Buyout Funds, Panelist Says
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South Korea should discourage buyout firms from bidding for Woori Finance Holdings Co. to avoid repeating the mistake it made when Lone Star Funds acquired Korea Exchange Bank, according to a member of the committee in charge of state asset sales.
“We must learn the lesson from this painful experience,” Lee Jae Sool, who was appointed to the Public Fund Oversight Committee in September, said an interview on Dec. 9 in Seoul. “We shouldn’t let private-equity funds buy Woori the next time the government tries to privatize it.”