Korea's NH Investment shortlists 3 CEO candidates

South Korean brokerage house NH Investment & Securities Co. has shortlisted three candidates for its next chief executive as the current CEO Jeong Young-chae will leave the company later this month.

The three candidates are its Vice CEO Yoon Byung-un, National Agriculture Cooperative Federation (NongHyup) former Vice Chairman Yoo Chan-hyung and Samsung Securities Co.'s former Vice President Sa Jae Hun, according to banking sources on Tuesday.

NH Investment will announce the final candidate at a board meeting on March 12 and officially nominate the next CEO at the general meeting of shareholders on March 26.

NH Investment sources say that the final candidate selection will be highly affected by the choice of Kang Ho-dong, who will become the chairman of NongHyup on March 7. NongHyup is the parent group of NH Investment.

Yoo has taken various roles in finance and management planning of the cooperative federation, but not in capital market-related positions.

Yoon, another candidate, has been responsible for sales at NH Investment for nearly 20 years. He worked alongside current Chief Jeong to build the brokerage firm’s investment banking division to its peak.

Sa has more than 25 years of experience in asset management. He has overseen channel sales, asset management and retail at Samsung Securities.

Jeong, who has been the chief since 2018, said on March 4 that he will leave the brokerage house after the general shareholders meeting.

He joined NH Investment in 2005 and led its investment banking division for 13 years.


Write to A-Young Yoon and Ji-Hyo Lee at youngmoney@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.