Samsung’s Insurance Arms Lead Korean Drive for Overseas M&A

South Korean banks and insurers are hunting for overseas deals to lift growth, signaling a broader outward turn by an industry that largely stayed home while companies including Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. built global businesses.

A rapidly aging population and a mature domestic market are pushing Korean financial groups to head out. Backed by strong balance sheets, they are scouring investments ranging from US insurance and retirement businesses to banks and consumer-finance companies across Asia, setting the stage for some of the industry’s biggest foreign bets yet.

This move is likely to be measured, rather than turn into a spending spree. Korean executives are studying the decades-long overseas expansion of Japanese financial institutions, hoping to replicate their successes while dodging the costly acquisitions and difficult integrations that accompanied some investments in emerging Asia.

Read more: Tokio Marine Weighs More Than $10 Billion of International M&A

“Going overseas is becoming almost unavoidable for Korean financial firms because the domestic market is mature and demographics are deteriorating,” said Jongmin Shim, Seoul-based head of research at CLSA Securities. “But history shows that simply buying growth abroad can destroy capital,” Shim added.

While cross-border dealmaking is not entirely new for Korean firms, the potential scale is different this time. Rather than buying control of unfamiliar businesses outright, many are looking at minority stakes and partnerships that let them build expertise before increasing their investments.

The shift is clearest at Samsung Group, where its two biggest insurers are considering overseas investments that illustrate both growing ambition and a more deliberate approach.

Read more: Samsung-Affiliated Insurers Plan to Buy Canopius for $1.5 Billion, Newspaper Says

Samsung Life Insurance Co. is looking to buy a mid-teens stake in US asset-management firm Principal Financial Group Inc. in a deal that could be worth up to 6 trillion won ($4.4 billion), Korean media reported. Samsung Life said it is reviewing various opportunities at home and overseas to secure new growth engines but added that nothing has been decided. A representative for Principal did not reply to a Bloomberg News request for comment.

Global dealmakers are taking notice of the trend, with some increasingly stopping in Seoul. One senior industry banker who typically visits South Korea twice a year has already made five trips in 2026 and expects to return before year-end. The executive asked not to be identified discussing private plans.

Samsung Life’s Korean Insurance Capital Standard ratio should stay strong in 2026, supported by factors including domestic equities and rising interest rates, Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst Steven Lam said in a note.

JB Financial Group Co. recently won Indonesian regulatory approval to acquire 85% of KB Bukopin Finance. Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Co. and Mirae Asset Securities Co. have said they are examining investment opportunities. KB Kookmin Bank has separately been reported as a possible buyer of a stake in Vietnam’s Techcombank.

A KB Kookmin spokesperson told Bloomberg News that Techcombank is among several potential targets the bank is reviewing, but said there are no concrete stake purchase talks underway.

“More Korean banks and general insurance companies are looking to grow overseas too,” said Kaustubh Kulkarni, Asia-Pacific head of investment banking at Citigroup Inc., pointing to a raft of companies from artificial intelligence to K-beauty industries making the move offshore.

‘Tokio Marine of Korea’

The emerging strategy owes much to Japan’s experience. Faced with many of the same pressures now confronting Korean firms, Japanese banks and insurers spent decades expanding abroad. Insurers found particular success in the US, while some investments in emerging Asia produced more mixed results.

Tokio Marine Holdings Inc., for example, transformed itself from a predominantly domestic insurer into a global player through a series of acquisitions, with overseas operations now accounting for a large share of its earnings.

A lot of the Korean insurance companies are studying Japanese peers and asking how they can become the ‘Tokio Marine of Korea,’ said the industry banker, who advised the Japanese insurer on some past deals.

Any potential investment by Samsung Life would mark a significant bet on the US, rather than on fast-growing emerging Asian markets that have traditionally attracted Korean financial institutions.

Samsung Fire & Marine offers another version of the strategy. After investing $150 million in Lloyd’s specialist Canopius Group Ltd. in 2019, the insurer increased its holding to 40% in 2025 and is now considering raising its stake to 90%, according to Korean media reports. The insurer said no specific decision has been made. Canopius did not respond to a query from Bloomberg News seeking comment.

Samsung Fire’s capital strength should provide “sufficient capacity for gradual overseas business expansion over the next two years,” said Emily Yi, director of financial services ratings for Asia-Pacific at S&P Global Ratings, while declining to comment on the firm’s potential targets.

Japan’s lessons are not all positive. Some banks including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc., paid rich valuations for Southeast Asian franchises, only to book huge impairment charges later as their targets’ share prices fell.

Korean institutions have painful lessons of their own. KB Kookmin Bank acquired a 22% stake in Indonesia’s Bank Bukopin in 2018 and took control two years later, only to pour in more capital to stabilize the lender and revive growth.

Those experiences are likely to encourage a more selective approach. Korea’s largest financial groups have spent more than a decade building businesses across Southeast Asia, and markets such as India and Vietnam remain attractive for their growth potential. But lenders are increasingly focused on profitability rather than simply expanding their overseas footprint.

Still, buying stakes in established foreign financial institutions can give Korean firms quick access to customers, distribution networks and local expertise while reducing the trial and error involved in entering a new market, Haesik Park, senior research fellow at Korea Institute of Finance, wrote in a recent report.

Korean financial stocks have re-rated as investors rewarded stronger profitability and increased dividends and buybacks, raising the hurdle for firms considering expensive acquisitions abroad.

“That’s why the companies need to be focused on profit. Shareholders don’t want to see them going overseas for a random lottery ticket,” Shim said.

Photograph: The Samsung Electronics Co. Seocho office building, center, at dusk in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023; Photo credit: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg