Woori Bank (CEO Sohn Tae-seung) announced on June 24th that it acquired ‘VisionFund Cambodia’, a financial institution in Cambodia, and renamed the entity as ‘WB Finance’.
WB Finance, a local nationwide financial company founded in 2003, has a total asset of 197 million dollars; it has 1,400 employees and 106 branches nationwide. Furthermore, it is also considered a financial company with strengths in retail sales and high growth potential.
Woori Bank entered Cambodia when it acquired Woori Finance Cambodia in 2014. After its acquisition, Woori Bank ranked third in market share among 70 small and medium-sized credit companies. Sohn Tae-seung, CEO of Woori Bank, has been pushing for additional acquisitions by financial institutions in order to increase investment based on Cambodia’s high economic growth rate and experience in managing small and medium-sized credit companies.
“With the acquisition of WB Finance, we have laid the foundation for our best local financial company. We will transform into a bank in the mid-to-long term and grown into Cambodia’s No.1 bank,” said an official of Woori Bank.
Since 2014, Sohn has worked as the head of the global business division and the head of the global affairs bureau, and has been working hard to advance into foreign markets.
The company expanded its global network from 73 retail branches in 18 countries to 410 retail branches in 25 countries, and its total assets increased 57 percent, from 14.7 billion dollars to 23.1 billion dollars. Sohn plans to increase overseas assets and operating revenues to 24.9 billion dollars and 580 million dollars respectively.
With the start of the acquisition of Sodara Bank in Indonesia in 2014, Woori bank acquired Woori Finance Cambodia in the same year, opened a credit company in Myanmar in 2015, acquired Wells Bank (Philippines Saving Bank) in 2016, successfully established a localization in Vietnam, and established a regional headquarters in India.
After reaching 200 global networks for the first time in 2015, Woori bank has secured 410 retail branches in about three years with the acquisition of WB Cambodia, making it the first Korean bank to enter the global the top 20 global networks (based on overseas networks).
우리은행, 캄보디아 금융사 인수해 글로벌네트워크 410개 달성
