Meritz Financial Group used to cancel repurchased shares the moment a buyback trust closed; the August 28 filing says it will now batch cancellations once a year, around March.
Meritz Financial Group is grouped with Korea's bank holding companies on most screens, but it owns no bank at all — earnings come from a P&C insurer and a brokerage.
Meritz Financial Group closed a 700bn won buyback trust five months early on August 28 because it was spent, then signed a fresh 500bn won contract the same day.
Meritz Financial Group (KRX:138040) and six other major Korean firms announced share buyback and dividend programs totalling ₩5 trillion in August 2026, the largest monthly shareholder-return announcement since start of year.
Meritz Financial Group (138040) signed a ₩500bn treasury-share trust contract with NH Investment & Securities running to 31 March 2027, and terminated an earlier ₩700bn contract on the same day, the company said in filings on Friday.
| Period | 138040 | KOSPI | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 week | +11.1% | -1.5% | +12.6% |
| 1 month | +13.4% | +5.2% | +8.2% |
| 3 months | +27.2% | -22.6% | +49.8% |
| 6 months | +23.4% | +31.3% | -7.9% |
| Year to date | +19.8% | +58.7% | -38.9% |
| 1 year | +9.8% | +108.9% | -99.1% |
Closed at 77% of the way from its 52-week low (₩100,600) to its 52-week high (₩146,200).
Meritz Financial Group is disclosing a decision by Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance, the unlisted general insurer it owns entirely. The insurer declared an interim dividend of ₩2,377 per share on 104,535,112 shares, ₩248.5bn in total, with an August 5 record date, and the whole amount goes to Meritz Financial Group. Measured against the group's 2025 net income of about ₩2.35tn the transfer is roughly 11% of a year's consolidated profit, though it moves cash inside the group rather than out of it. Payment is due within a week of the resolution, which is why the payment-date field is left blank. Meritz Fire accounts for 38.8% of group total assets.
The companion to the same-day disclosure of Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance's ₩248.5bn interim dividend. It fixes August 5, 2026 as the record date for determining who is entitled to receive it. The answer, stated in the filing itself, is Meritz Financial Group — the insurer's sole shareholder. Three outside directors attended the board meeting with none absent. The document repeats that Meritz Fire represents 38.8% of group total assets, the threshold measure that makes the parent's disclosure obligatory in the first place.
Meritz Financial Group Inc. is a Korean financial holding company that, unlike the four large groups a US investor usually meets first, owns no bank. Its earnings come from two wholly owned subsidiaries: Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance, a property and casualty insurer that leans heavily on long-term health and accident policies, and Meritz Securities, a brokerage whose profits are driven by real estate project financing, structured products and principal investment rather than retail commissions. The group simplified itself in 2023 by absorbing both listed subsidiaries into the holding company through share swaps, leaving a single listed entity where there had been three. Management has publicly committed to returning at least 50% of consolidated net income to shareholders each year, split between dividends and share buybacks that are then cancelled, and has run repeated buyback trust contracts to execute it. That policy, unusual in its size and explicitness for a Korean financial, is the main reason the stock comes up in conversations about Korea's corporate governance reform.
| Sector | Banks | Employees | |
| Market | KOSPI | Founded | |
| Korean name | 메리츠금융지주 | Head office |
| Symbol | Last Price |
|---|---|
| 105560KB Financial Group Inc. | ₩172,000 -3.3% |
| 055550Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. | ₩110,300 -3.7% |
| 086790Hana Financial Group Inc. | ₩134,300 -3.7% |
| 316140Woori Financial Group Inc. | ₩33,200 -4.2% |
| 024110Industrial Bank of Korea | ₩20,700 -2.1% |
| 323410KakaoBank Corp. | ₩21,950 +0.7% |
| 279570Kbank | ₩5,600 +0.5% |