Shinhan Financial Group Chair Cho Yong-byoung will resume his overseas business trips next week, while the leaders of other financial holding companies here remain cautious about going abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is the first time for him to travel abroad for business, since his attendance at the IMF’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in October 2019.
The main purpose of his forthcoming trip is to introduce Shinhan’s strategies for net-zero emissions to the participants of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) Finance Day event that will be held November 3 in Glasgow, Scotland, following a two-day meeting of political leaders worldwide.
Nigel Topping, the UK’s high-level champion for climate action at COP26, met the Shinhan chair in Seoul last month and invited him to the Finance Day event, which will be attended by representatives from global financial giants such as Citigroup, HSBC and BlackRock, as well as those from Korea’s state-run banks ― the Korea Development Bank (KDB) and the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank).
Cho will deliver a separate speech at another session of the conference, which will be held November 9 by the Ministry of Environment and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), a Seoul-headquartered intergovernmental organisation dedicated to promoting sustainable economic growth.
On the sidelines of the conference, he will visit New York, London and Paris to meet investors and representatives from foreign companies serving that are Shinhan’s major shareholders.
“Because we will announce our third-quarter earnings on October 26, we decided to take advantage of our chair’s forthcoming trip to hold investor roadshows abroad,†said a Shinhan executive who will accompany the chair on his trip. “At this moment, we are arranging meetings with foreign investors.â€
In contrast, KB Financial Group said its chair has yet to make any plans for travelling overseas. Hana Financial Group declined to comment on its chair’s schedule.
Woori Financial Group was once said to be pushing ahead with resuming investor roadshows this year in North America, the UK and Singapore, but its spokesman denied this rumour, saying it is still unclear whether its chair can head overseas for business within this year.
“We may consider resuming our investor roadshows abroad, if the situations improve in other countries,†the Woori spokesman said. “Instead of holding face-to-face meetings with foreign investors, we are aggressively holding contactless investor roadshows at this moment.â€
Before the pandemic, the chief executives of the nation’s top four financial groups visited other countries frequently to direct investor roadshows abroad.
In 2019, the Shinhan chair visited the US, Canada, the UK and Nordic nations to meet representatives from global asset management firms. KB Chair Yoon Jong-kyoo also visited investors in Hong Kong and Australia in April that year. Woori Chair Son Tae-seung traveled to the Middle East, Europe and North America in October that year to direct the group’s overseas investor roadshows.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz/2021/10/126_317260.html
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Category: Korea
