Asia’s best bank transformation 2017: KEB Hana

No merger is easy, but the combination of Hana Bank and the former Korea Exchange Bank to form KEB Hana faced more challenges than most. KEB has been a troubled asset for more than a decade, with suitors from DBS to HSBC all deterred or rejected over the years. It was sold by US private equity firm Lone Star to Hana in 2012, but it took three more years for Hana to strike an agreement with KEB’s powerful union on a merger between the two institutions.