- Woori is one of South Korea’s largest financial services and securities companies
- Association will help bring synergies to both financial conglomerates to expand their product offerings in India and Korea
- Woori will look to help raise up to US$ 500 Mn across various asset classes from Korea, for investment in India
Aditya Birla Financial Services Group (ABFSG), with a significant presence in the non-bank financial services space in India, has signed a MOU with Woori Investment & Securities (Woori I&S), a leading Korea based securities company, today. This MOU will help both groups leverage business synergies and extend their product, service and advice offerings to a larger customer base across the Indian and Korean markets.
Woori I&S, a part of the Woori Financial Group, is one of the largest securities company in South Korea and offers a broad range of financial services, encompassing wealth management, investment banking and, brokerage. Woori I&S now intend to further extend its businesses into overseas markets including China, Russia, Vietnam and India to secure global competitiveness as a global player. This agreement with ABFSG will help Woori I&S to extend its reach to India and augment the product, service & advice offering to its retail & corporate customers, .
The MOU will pave the way for ABFSG to raise funds overseas for its Mutual Fund, PE & Real Estate Funds businesses, offer additional value-added products and services to its retail customers and leverage business synergies in the area of technology & research.
Commenting on the occasion, Ajay Srinivasan, Chief Executive – Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group said “At ABFSG, we are driven by our business vision of being a leader and role model in a broad based and integrated business. Today, we are a significant non-bank player, empowered to meet all financial needs of our customers, besides core banking. We are delighted to now have Woori I&S as our partner. The relationship will not only help us add value to our customers in India, but will also help us expand our geographic reach and presence with the opportunity to reach out to customers in Korea, who want to be a part of this great Indian growth story.”
Adding to this, Sung Ho Hwang, CEO & President, Woori Investment & Securities said, ”In line with our strategy of extending our business footprint in India, we are happy to partner with ABFSG, one of India’s leading and most reputed financial services company. We are confident that this partnership will provide us the right platform to build bridges between our two nations and our two organizations and help strengthen our business objectives in a leading economy in Asia.”
Some of the key areas the MOU will cover:
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- Fund raising of about $ 500 mn for ABFSG’s Mutual Funds, Real Estate Funds, PE Funds
- Supplementing the product, services, advisory basket of each other’s products by ABFSG’s products to Korean customers & Woori I&S’s products to Indian customers
- Strengthen Aditya Birla Money’s position in the Broking space by:
- Introducing Institutional overseas broking platform that can be used for Institutional/HNI & NRI investment from Korea to India & vice versa
- Collaborating in areas of technology (trading & online platform), Risk Management Platform/practices, etc
- Tap growing business interest between India & Korea by offering services to Korean companies venturing into India & vice versa
- Strengthen the staff training/exchange program to improve capabilities of both organizations by sharing of knowledge & best practices
ABFSG will enter this agreement with Woori I&S through Aditya Birla Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. (ABFSL).
About Woori Investment & Securities:
Woori Investment & Securities (Woori I&S), founded in 1969, is a key member of the Woori Financial Group and is one of the largest securities company in South Korea. Woori I&S offers a broad range of financial services, encompassing wealth management, investment banking and brokerage through 121 domestic branches and 7 overseas subsidiaries (in China, Vietnam & US).
Woori Financial Group was established as the first financial holding company of Korea in April 2001. The Woori group itself is 110 years old. The Group consist of eminent eight subsidiaries, include Woori Bank, the nation’s second largest commercial bank, two regional banks (Kwangju Bank and Kyongnam Bank), Woori Investment & Securities, one of leading security firms, Woori Aviva Life Insurance, Woori Asset Management, Woori Financial, Woori Private Equity, Woori F&I, and Woori Finance Information System. Approximately 23,000 highly skilled employees provide differentiated and custom-tailored financial services through 1,300 domestic and overseas networks. More than 17 million corporate and retail customers are enjoying our comprehensive financial services in the fields of commercial banking, credit card, capital market, investment banking, asset management, security brokerage, lease and bancassurance.
As of the end of December, 2008, the group’s total assets and shareholders’ equity stood at around W325 billion and W14.3 trillion, respectively, which represents the largest scale in Korea. They also ranked 65th as of the end of 2007 in the world’s top 1,000 banks list that was released by ‘The Banker’, a U.K.-based banking magazine.
About Aditya Birla Financial Services Group (ABFSG)
The Aditya Birla Financial Services Group (ABFSG) has a significance presence across various verticals, including life insurance, insurance broking, mutual funds, private equity, security based lending, factoring, insurance advisory services, retail broking and distribution of third party products.
The seven companies representing Aditya Birla Financial Services Group are Birla Sun Life Insurance Company, Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company, Aditya Birla Money (erstwhile Apollo Sindhoori Capital Investments), Birla Sun Life Distribution Company, Aditya Birla Finance (erstwhile Birla Global Finance), Birla Insurance Advisory & Broking Services and Aditya Birla Capital Advisors.
The ABFSG is committed to being a leader and role model in a broad based and integrated financial services business. Its 7 lines of business, with over 4.2 million customers manages assets worth USD 18 billion approximately and prides itself for having a talent pool of over 15,000 committed employees. ABFSG has its wings spread across more than 500 cities in India through 1550 branches and over 2 lac channel partners. This allows ABFSG to offer its customers virtually anything other than a savings or current account. With over a billion dollar revenue, ABFSG is a significant non bank player and one of the few players who have a top 5 position in both life insurance and mutual funds.
ABFSG is a part of Aditya Birla Nuvo Limited (ABNL), a USD 3 billion conglomerate having leadership position across its manufacturing as well as services sector businesses. ABNL is a part of the Aditya Birla Group, a USD 29 billion Indian business house operating in 25 countries across the globe.