Gov"t to Sell Life Insurance Companies

The government plans to sell three or four, financially-troubled life insurance companies which have not advanced their management to foreign investors by March.
A source at the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) announced on January 3 that the FSC will conclude the sale plan by the end of February and sell at least three, possibly four life insurance companies within the first quarter of 1999.
The source said that the life insurance companies on the auction block are among the seven which submitted their plans to the government for management normalization.
He added that the government is considering ways to support the troubled life insurance companies initially with public money and then eventually through a sale of a portion of the companies' equities to foreign investors, as it did in the case of Korea First Bank. The government has not ruled out initially merging three or four companies, if it is necessary, he said.