• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.717-726
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• 2008

The purpose of this paper is to assess the financial strength of general insurers by using A.M. Best's rating technique focusing on quantitative standards. A quantitative evaluation of fifteen larger general insurers' financial strength and operating performance relative to the Best's top group is carried out. The quantitative evaluation is done in 5 key areas; growth, efficiency, profitability, safety and liquidity. The results show that there is a big gap between domestic large insurers and American insures in all areas except stable growth of operations. Therefore, domestic insurers have to strive to strengthen financial soundness through profitability and should increase the capacity to retain more commercial business and reinsurance in order to become global players.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.181-208
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• 2010

In July 2007, Korean government has passed "The Capital Market and Financial Investment Services Act" to further develop the capital markets and the Act was to become effective in February 2009. Using a large sample of Korean firms, we have examined (i) the effect of underwriting activities on the firm value (bond spread) comparing commercial bank and investment bank, and (ii) the determinants of the firm value changes following underwriting activities of bank. To test our goal, we collected a wide range of samples of data for bond issuing activities executed by Korean firms listed on the Korea Stock Exchange (KSE) between 2000 and 2003. Our paper is distinguished from previous studies on this subject in a way that we analyzed the effect of corporate bond underwriting activities with regard to commercial banking and investment banking. Initially, we set up a hypothesis that "Certification View" and "Conflict-of-interest View" are major driving forces behind cross-firm differences in performance following bond issuance. We find that, in general, underwriting by investment bank (securities company) brings a positive effect on the firm value (spread between bench mark rate and bond issuing rate). This result indicates that firm value has been negatively affected by the bank underwriting and provides the evidence for "Conflict-of-interest View" in Korea. Our studies have also revealed that any change in firm value following bond issuance is positively related with the firm size (total asset), operating performance, liquidity (cashflow), and equity ownership by foreign investors. Overall, our results support the view that bank underwriting activities can play an important role in determining firm value and financial strategies under "The Capital Market and Financial Investment Services Act" of 2007.