President Lee Dae-houn of NH Bank. (Photo: NH Bank)

President Lee Dae-houn of NH Bank has a good chance for getting his tenure extended for another year after achieving outstanding results for the bank in 2018. NH Financial Group, owing to NH Bank’s earnings surprise in the first nine months of this year, saw its net profit for the first three quarters of 2018 rise 48 percent to 1.077,7 trillion won.

Taking into account the money the bank gives to the National Agricultural Cooperatives Federation (NACF) to support the agricultural sector of the country, its total net profit would come to 1.280,4 trillion won. NH Financial is likely to call a meeting of the Officer Candidate Recommendation Committee on Nov. 16 with NH Bank President Lee considered as the most probable candidate to be on the recommendation list of the committee.

Lee was named to head the bank when he was president of a savings bank affiliate of the financial group at the end of last year for a one-year term, which can be renewed for another year.

The CEO has had an outstanding year, focusing the management of the bank on a strategy geared to developing digitalization and marketing, which has been evaluated to be a great success in the banking industry. The bank’s net profit for the first nine months this year amounted to 933.9 billion won.

The net profit for three quarters of the year increased a whopping 81 percent on-year, the largest percentage increase in the bank’s history, and exceeded estimates by around 20 percent. If the current trend continues until the end of the year, the bank’s net profit for the year may come to around 1 trillion won.

The bank would have enough money to extend financial support to the agricultural sector to boost the annual earnings of farming housholds to an average of around 50 million won.

President Lee is highly regarded both at NACF and NH Financial for his management talent and trust as a CEO.
Chairman Kim Kwang-soo of NH Financial said the key points for evaluation of affiliate CEOs performances would be the achievements and professional quality at a meeting examining the affiliate CEOs job performances.

The Officer Candidate Recommendation Committee is made of four members not counting Vice President Lee Kang-shin of NH Financial as he is up for extension for another term of office with his current term of office up.

NongHyup Financial Group provides financial products and services in South Korea. Its services include financing, mortgages, personal lines of credit, corporate finance, real estate finance, and new technology finance.

The company also provides life, property, and casualty insurance products. In addition, it accepts various deposits products, such as time and periodical deposits; and offers loan products, as well as engages in agricultural cooperative banking, investment and securities, and asset management businesses.

The company is based in Seoul, South Korea. NongHyup Financial Group is a subsidiary of National Agricultural Cooperative Federation.

NH Financial kicked off in 2012, but its roots go back to 1961 when its precursor, the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation ― or NongHyup ― was created to protect the rights of farmers and promote the agricultural industry.

Following NongHyup’s decision spin off its credit business, NH Financial was born in 2012 as a financial holding company handling banking, insurance, futures, securities and asset management.

Since then, NH Financial has been steadily expanding in size and scope but few expected that it could take over Woori’s brokerage houses.

Upon completing the 1 trillion won ($966 million) acquisition in June, NH not only became the country’s fourth-largest financial group, but it now controls Korea’s largest brokerage unit.