Hana Financial Q3 net down 20.1%

Hana Financial Group Inc., South Korea's No. 4 banking group, said Friday its third-quarter earnings slumped 20.1 percent from a year earlier due mainly to increased one-off expenses. Net income reached 205.3 billion won (US$178.9 million) in the July-September period, compared with 257 billion won in the previous year, the group said in a regulatory filing. Compared with three months earlier, net profit more than halved. Revenue, however, soared 72.9 percent on-year to 8.8 trillion won in the three-month period, while operating profit inched down 0.1 percent to 296.6 billion won, the group said. Shares of Hana Financial closed at 36,800 won, up 2.79 percent from the previous close. The business results were announced after the stock market closed. Hana Financial said the weaker bottom line came on the heels of higher severance payments doled out to retiring workers. The No. 4 banking group is currently awaiting regulatory permission for its Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) deal with Lone Star Funds. In July, Hana Financial agreed with the U.S. buyout firm to extend the deal to buy a 51.02 percent stake in KEB until November with a lower price of 4.41 trillion won. Following a Seoul court's recent guilty verdict on Lone Star, the sale is pending regulatory permit from the Financial Services Commission, the top financial regulator.