JSM Financial: HSBC announces that it won’t bid for a stake in Korea Exchange Bank.

April 27, 2010 - PRLog -- Michael Geoghegen, the CEO of the UK-based banking giant HSBC Holdings has recently put rumors and speculation to rest when he announced that HSBS would definitely not be in the bidding for a $4.2 billion controlling stake in Korea Exchange Bank, JSM Financial has been informed.

When asked by a leading news agency at an American Chamber of Commerce event at the Four Seasons in Hong Kong, whether HSBC would be  mounting a bid he replied, “No we are not.”

This denial is the first public comment on the matter to come from HSBC since Lone Star Fund re-launched the sale of its KEB stake.

JSM Financial research shows that Lone Star acquired KEB in 2003 as part of the general reorganization of the South Korean financial sector following the Asian financial crisis. The U.S. private equity firm tried to sell KEB, first to Kookmin Bank for $7.3 Billion in 2006 and then again to HSBC in 2008 but the deal fell apart as a result of pricing and legal disputes over Lone Star Fund’s South Korean activities.

Sources indicate that Lone Star’s 51% KEB stake is currently valued at around $4.17 billion.

With Europe’s leading bank no longer in the running some sources close to the matter expect  Australian and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., headed by  HSBC’s former top Asia executive Michael Smith, to mount a bid.

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