S. Korean corporate watchdogs approve Shinhan's acquisition of LG Card

SEOUL, Jan. 18 (Yonhap) -- The Fair Trade Commission, South Korea's corporate watchdog, said Thursday that it has approved Shinhan Financial Group's takeover of LG Card Co., the country's top credit card company, a deal valued at 5.18 trillion won (US$5.52 billion).

In December, Shinhan Financial, the country's second-largest financial service company, agreed to buy a 61-percent stake in LG Card from creditors.

Shinhan, South Korea's second-largest financial services company, has been pushing to pump up its credit card and commission-generating businesses as heightened competition in
Asia's third-largest economy squeezes its lending margins.

Partly owned by the French BNP Paribas, the group plans to catapult its credit card unit to the world's fifth-largest credit card company by 2015 with the acquisition of LG Card.

Shinhan plans to wrap up the acquisition by March this year after making a public tender offer to buy out remaining shares of LG Card.

The purchase of LG Card, which serves one out of every four South Koreans, would boost the number of Shinhan's cardholders to 14 million and raise its share of the nation's credit card industry to more than 20 percent, according to market experts.

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