Earnings Labs

Woori Financial Group Inc. (WF)

Q4 2021 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 9, 2022

$67.73

+0.31%

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Transcript

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Good afternoon. I am Lee Dong Su [ph], Head of IR at Woori Financial Group. Let me first begin by thanking everyone for participating on this earnings conference call today. So on today's call, we have the group CFO, Lee Sung-wook; Group CRO; Jung Seok-Young; Group CFO, Park Jong-il; and Group CEO, Hwang Weon Cheol. As COVID continues, we see fewer opportunities to meet with investors in person. So today, we have prepared a special event before going into the earnings presentation. Woori Financial Group Chairman, Son Tae-Seung is on the call today to extend his greetings and to address our investors. Now please look at the presentation material on the screen. Now I will hand it over to the Chairman, Son Tae-Seung, for his remarks. Please go ahead.

Son Tae-Seung

Management

Good afternoon. I am Son Tae-Seung, Chairman of Woori Financial Group. As COVID continues, it is unfortunate that there are less opportunities to directly communicate with the market. So I wanted to use this earnings call as an opportunity to thank our investors and also briefly discuss the main achievements of 2021, and management direction for 2022. Last year, 2021 was an extremely meaningful year at the Woori Financial Group. First, from a financial standpoint, we were able to replace our record each and every quarter which led to net profit growing around 98% Y-o-Y to KRW 2,587.9 billion. This is the highest net profit or net income in our history, and in addition, in all areas across profitability, asset soundness and cost management, we were able to step up our performance, creating a solid foundation for future profit generation. In addition, last September, we received final approval for our IRB approach, which will provide momentum to move to the next stage. In the digital and ESG space, we have laid the groundwork and have been able to outperform market expectations. In recognition of our stronger financial performance and also differentiated growth potential, the group was able to achieve full privatization on December 9 of last year. We thank you for this. During the privatization process, we were able to confirm strong investor interest in Woori Financial Group as well as gain confidence about the expectations for stronger growth going forward and the removal of discount vectors. Today, as we have disclosed, the Woori Financial Group Board has reviewed the 2021 financial performance and also took into consideration the mid- to long-term business plan for the group and confirmed 2021 dividend to be KRW 900 per share, including the KRW 151 interim dividends already paid. The dividend per share is…

Unidentified Company Representative

Management

Yes. Thank you. Next, we will have the group CFO, Lee Sung-wook, go into the full presentation. Thank you.

Lee Sung-wook

Management

Good afternoon. I am Lee Sung-wook, the Group CFO at Woori Financial Group. I would like to thank everyone for participating on this call for the 2020 year full year performance of our group. Let me jump into the 2021 performance and walk you through. So please refer to the Page 3 of the presentation material that is available on our website. First, let me start with net income. As the Chairman has just mentioned, Woori Financial Group recorded a net income of KRW 2,587.9 billion in 2021, reaching a record high. Against the backdrop of uncertainties in Korea and abroad, this net income represents an increase of 98% Y-o-Y. It is the result of our stronger profit generation capabilities, stable asset quality and tight cost management. In particular, the contribution of the nonbank business, which was 10% when we first created the holding company, has grown to 17.2% as of 2021 and broadening the profit base of the group. Moreover, the group's fourth quarter 2021 net income was up by 133.5% Y-o-Y at KRW 390 billion. Though one-off factors such as the support for job transitions and additional provisions related to COVID uncertainties, we have been -- have been included. We continue to extend the performance turnaround trend each quarter. Next is the group's net operating revenue. In 2021, the group's net operating revenue was KRW 8,344 billion, an increase of 22.3% to Y-o-Y. Solid asset growth centered on SME loans, along with active margin management efforts for fruit, enabling the group to post KRW 6,986 billion in interest income for 2021. The group's noninterest income also reached KRW 1,350 billion, a significant increase of 65.2% year-over-year, driving the improvement in performance. Such performance was possible due to the efforts aimed at breaking away from the interest income center…