KB Financial Group (105560) 🔎 In-depth
KOSPI · Price as of 2026-08-06 · Updated 2026-08-09
KB Financial Group is a financial holding company built around KB Kookmin Bank, with KB Securities, KB Kookmin Card and KB Insurance alongside it. It makes money from the interest spread between deposits and loans, plus the fee income generated by the card, securities and insurance units. In the first half of 2026 it posted operating profit of ₩5.4401 trillion (up 22.9% year over year) and net profit attributable to controlling shareholders of ₩3.8846 trillion (up 13.1%), and on July 23 it approved a quarterly dividend of ₩1,155 per share together with a ₩700.0 billion treasury-share acquisition and cancellation. The key point to watch is that steadily returning its growing profit through dividends and share cancellation is genuinely shrinking the share count, which is a strength, while bank earnings remain sensitive to the direction of interest rates and to credit costs, so the second-half trend hinges on those variables.
This page organises public market and filing data for information purposes. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell, nor investment advice. Metrics labelled “forward” are our own unverified estimates. Please verify with the original DART filings and decide at your own responsibility.
30-second brief
Pulled directly from the computed values below — not a separately written opinion.
What do the SourceComputedEstimateReading tags mean?
Source filings and exchange data · Computed calculated from public data · Estimate our own unverified projection · Reading drafted automatically, then rule-checked. See AI & Automation.
Core valuation metric
This stock's effective sub-sector is “Banks” (Financials), a type typically read first through P/B.
Banks earn by putting capital to work through deposits and loans, so what matters is how much equity (net assets) they hold and how efficiently they use it, more than headline profit. That makes price-to-book (P/B) the first lens — but it should be read alongside ROE, which shows how much profit the equity generates.
Price against assets alone says little about where the cycle stands. Reading it together with price against this year's expected earnings shows how far profits have recovered.
This note explains how each sector is typically valued and is educational context only, not investment advice.
At-a-glance assessment financial health · growth · profitability · valuation
- For financial companies, debt and interest costs are large by the nature of the business, so the debt ratio and interest coverage cannot be read on the same yardstick as an ordinary company.
- ROE is 10.2% (controlling-interest basis). It is above the sector average.
Ownership & governance As of 2025-12-31
Largest shareholder National Pension Service 8.68% (corporate)
Controlling bloc incl. related parties 8.68%
With the controlling bloc holding 9%, ownership is dispersed, leaving room for control-related or activist dynamics.
Financial-group subsidiaries stake
| KB Life Partners | sub-subsidiary | 100% |
🔎 In-depth analysis Reading
KB Financial Group does not run an operating business itself. It is a holding company that owns and manages financial affiliates, and the money comes from those affiliates. The largest pillar is KB Kookmin Bank, which takes deposits, lends them out and keeps the interest spread. Around it sit KB Securities (fees from equity and bond intermediation and from wealth management), KB Kookmin Card (credit-purchase and installment fees) and KB Insurance (underwriting and asset management), which add fee and non-interest income unrelated to the interest spread. One caveat matters. The ₩62.4563 trillion of 'revenue' disclosed for the first half of 2026 is simply the sum of interest income, fee income, insurance income and similar lines — the filing itself says as much. Because a large part of the money received flows straight back out as interest and insurance claims, it is not the same kind of figure as revenue at a manufacturer. For this company it is better to look at operating profit, net profit, and how efficiently it deploys the equity capital it has built up, rather than at revenue.
The latest close is ₩171,500 and the market capitalization is ₩60.8 trillion. The price sits below its 20-day moving average (₩173,235) and above its 60-day moving average (₩163,270). Short-term and medium-term trends are diverging, so the direction is best read separately. The RSI (a supplementary indicator that gauges the strength of gains versus losses over the past 14 days on a 0-100 scale) is 52.7, a neutral level. The one-month change is -1.0%, the three-month change is +7.9%, and the position relative to the 52-week high is -7.9%. Relative strength versus the KOSPI is 60 (on a 1-99 scale, converted from returns against the index over the past year with more weight on recent performance; higher means stronger than the market). It is stronger than roughly 60% of all stocks. Over the past three months it outpaced the index by 26.6%. Chart interpretation is best done alongside trading volume and the dates on which disclosures occur.
For a bank holding company, P/B (how many times book value the shares trade at) comes before the P/E ratio (how many times one year of earnings). A bank generates profit by deploying the equity capital it holds, so how much capital there is and how much it earns on that capital — ROE, or return on equity — drives value. So this metric was recalculated directly. Dividing market capitalization of ₩60.1196 trillion by the most recently confirmed equity attributable to controlling shareholders of ₩59.0482 trillion gives a P/B of 1.03x, matching the 1.02x shown on this site. In other words, the share price has only just moved above book value. ROE is 9.9%, the highest among the bank holding companies compared below, and that profitability explains a price sitting around book value. The remaining metrics: book value per share (BPS) of ₩166,479, earnings per share (EPS) of ₩16,446, a dividend yield of 2.58% (₩4,367 per share on an annualized basis) and a payout ratio of 27%. The debt figure works out at 12.5x equity (assets of ₩797.923 trillion against liabilities of ₩737.093 trillion), but that reflects the structure peculiar to banks, where customer deposits are booked as liabilities. Risk here cannot be measured with a manufacturer's yardstick; actual soundness is read from capital ratios. For the same reason, enterprise-value metrics and free cash flow yield do not fit a financial company and are not calculated. And because profit is steady and cash keeps circulating, the exercise of asking how many quarters of cash burn the company's cash could cover does not apply here either.
Profit has grown steadily over several years. Net profit attributable to controlling shareholders rose from ₩4.5948 trillion in 2023 to ₩5.0782 trillion in 2024 (+10.5%) and ₩5.8332 trillion in 2025 (+14.9%) — the pace of growth actually picked up. Operating profit also rose each year, from ₩9.5314 trillion to ₩10.0895 trillion to ₩10.8806 trillion. The trend carried into 2026. First-quarter consolidated net profit was ₩1.9165 trillion, up 12.8% from a year earlier. The preliminary results disclosed on July 23 show second-quarter net profit attributable to controlling shareholders of ₩1.9922 trillion, up 14.6% year over year and 5.3% from the previous quarter. Adding the two quarters gives first-half operating profit of ₩5.4401 trillion (+22.9%) and net profit attributable to controlling shareholders of ₩3.8846 trillion (+13.1%). The forward P/E for this year works out at 9.22x, and the reasoning is clear. First, more than half of the full-year profit is already fixed by disclosure; this is a calculation layered on confirmed results rather than stacked on assumptions. Second, the centre of gravity in earnings has shifted. Even with rates falling, interest income held roughly flat while fee income grew sharply and drove the increase. With securities, card and insurance now carrying a meaningful share of group profit, the group is no longer pulled along by the margin at a single bank. Third, the lighter credit-cost burden looks set to continue into the third quarter, so double-digit year-over-year growth is likely to hold. Fourth, the fourth quarter is seasonally the smallest, because voluntary-retirement costs and SG&A expenses cluster there. Reflecting that seasonality as is and adding the remaining two quarters puts this year's profit up by a low double-digit percentage from last year. That produces a forward P/E of 9.22x, below the 10.31x based on confirmed results, and a forward P/B of 0.94x, under 1x. On top of that, as share cancellation shrinks the share count, per-share earnings improve faster than net profit itself.
The recent filings cluster on a single day, July 23, when first-half preliminary results arrived together with a set of shareholder-return decisions. First, the dividend: a quarterly payout of ₩1,155 per share, ₩405.5 billion in total, with a record date of August 7. Second, treasury shares: the company will enter a ₩700.0 billion treasury-share acquisition trust running to December 16 and then retire all 3,997,715 shares acquired that way, equal to about 1.1% of the 354,687,734 shares outstanding. A further 3,581,623 shares (about ₩600.0 billion) secured by July 16 under an April resolution are scheduled for cancellation on December 23. Taken together, the company is taking in and cancelling about ₩1.3 trillion of stock this year alone. Cancelling treasury shares lifts per-share value by shrinking the share count. Third, capital management: on the same day the group approved a ₩270.0 billion issue of hybrid capital securities (write-down contingent capital securities), with the proceeds earmarked for repaying existing debt. Swapping into instruments that count as capital is a routine way of managing capital ratios. The filings also confirm that the size is reasonable. The same document puts the ceiling for treasury-share purchases at roughly ₩1.1439 trillion, and this ₩700.0 billion contract sits inside that limit — meaning the return is not being stretched beyond what the company can carry.
KB Financial Group's profile is relatively clear. Among the bank holding companies compared here it earns the most on its capital (ROE of 9.9%) and returns what it earns most actively. Three things stand out. First, first-half profit is fixed by disclosure, so the basis for this year's forward P/E of 9.22x is closer to fact than to assumption. Second, dividends and cancellations repeat quarter after quarter, and the share count is genuinely falling. Third, profit comes not from one bank but from securities, card and insurance together, moving the group away from a structure in which a single interest-rate phase drags the entire result. Three cautions balance that. First, fee income contributed heavily to the recent profit growth; if equity market turnover cools, second-half profit estimates can come down. Second, the fourth quarter is seasonally the smallest as voluntary-retirement costs and SG&A expenses cluster there, so reading that quarter's numbers alone as a broken trend would be a misunderstanding. Third, the valuation is the highest among peers: a P/B of 1.02x and a forward P/E of 9.11x sit above the bank holding median (P/B of 0.78x, forward P/E of 7.34x). High ROE and shareholder returns explain the gap, but if profit wobbles the premium is the first thing to shrink. In short, capital profitability and shareholder returns are the strengths, and interest rates, credit costs and equity market turnover are the variables that decide whether those strengths last.
🔎 Valuation vs peers Fairly valued
The closest set by business substance: Korea's largest bank holding companies by market capitalization plus a state-owned bank. For banks the convention is to pair P/B with ROE rather than lean on the P/E ratio, so both metrics are shown together.
| Peer | P/E | P/B | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shinhan Financial Group | 10.25x | 0.85x | 8.64% |
| Hana Financial Group | 9.14x | 0.81x | 9.03% |
| Woori Financial Group | 7.87x | 0.64x | 8.18% |
| Industrial Bank of Korea | 5.99x | 0.44x | 7.20% |
| iM Financial Group | 6.40x | 0.45x | 7.13% |
Start with where it sits versus the peer set. KB Financial Group's P/B of 1.02x is above Shinhan Financial Group at 0.84x, Hana Financial Group at 0.78x, Woori Financial Group at 0.68x, Industrial Bank of Korea at 0.44x and iM Financial Group at 0.44x. Its forward P/E of 9.22x is also above the bank holding median of 7.34x. On either measure it sits above the group. Next, the basis for that premium. ROE is 9.9%, the highest in the peer set. For a bank, what it earns on capital is what justifies the P/B, and dividing P/B by ROE gives 10.3 for KB Financial Group, 9.8 for Shinhan Financial Group, 8.7 for Hana Financial Group, 7.8 for Woori Financial Group, 6.2 for iM Financial Group and 5.9 for Industrial Bank of Korea. The gap to Shinhan Financial Group is not wide. Adjusted for profitability, the premium is hard to call excessive. Added to that are the ₩700.0 billion trust acquisition, the cancellation of roughly ₩600.0 billion resolved in April, and the quarterly dividend of ₩1,155 per share. Finally, the limits of the trailing figures and the basis for the forward ones. The P/E of 10.31x uses last year's profit, so this year's improvement is missing entirely. Layering second-half seasonality onto the confirmed first-half profit gives a forward P/E of 9.11x, lower than that, and a forward P/B of 0.94x, below 1x. Even so, the position versus peers remains on the high side, which makes it hard to call undervalued. This looks like a fair range in which high profitability and shareholder returns support the difference. One point remains open: as cancellation reduces the shares in circulation, the same profit produces lower multiples.
Price history Close · MA20 · MA60
The latest close is ₩171,500 and the market capitalization is ₩60.8 trillion. The price sits below its 20-day moving average (₩173,235) and above its 60-day moving average (₩163,270). Short-term and medium-term trends are diverging, so the direction is best read separately. The RSI (a supplementary indicator that gauges the strength of gains versus losses over the past 14 days on a 0-100 scale) is 52.7, a neutral level. The one-month change is -1.0%, the three-month change is +7.9%, and the position relative to the 52-week high is -7.9%. Relative strength versus the KOSPI is 60 (on a 1-99 scale, converted from returns against the index over the past year with more weight on recent performance; higher means stronger than the market). It is stronger than roughly 60% of all stocks. Over the past three months it outpaced the index by 26.6%. Chart interpretation is best done alongside trading volume and the dates on which disclosures occur.
Relative performance stock vs index · start = 100
Excess return vs index · 3M +26.56% / 6M +0.84% / 12M -21.41%
Key metrics Computed vs sector median
Valuation
The P/E of 10.43x is above the sector median (7.87x). The P/B of 1.02x is above the sector median (0.81x).
Profitability & financials
Return on equity (ROE) is 10.2%, in line with the sector average (9.0%). The debt ratio is 1295.0%, but for financial firms deposits and insurance liabilities count as debt, so it cannot be read on the same yardstick as an ordinary company.
Growth FY2025 · annual report (consolidated)
| Item | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | — | — | — | — |
| Operating profit | $6.7B | $7.1B | $7.6B | +7.84% ↑ faster |
| Net profit | $3.2B | $3.6B | $4.1B | +14.87% ↑ faster |
| 5-year | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | — | — | — | — | — |
| Operating profit | — | — | $6.7B | $7.1B | $7.6B |
| Net profit | — | — | $3.2B | $3.6B | $4.1B |
Operating profit rose 7.8% year over year. Profit is growing at an accelerating pace.
Latest quarterly results Source
No recent quarterly results confirmed from DART.
Technical indicators Computed
What stands out
- ROE of 10.2% points to solid profitability.
Points to watch
- The figures shown are based on the last annual report as of the writing date, so it is best to review the latest quarterly results and filings alongside them.
Recent news & events searched · sourced
- 2026-07-23EarningsFair disclosure of preliminary consolidated operating results. Second-quarter operating profit of ₩2.7125 trillion (up 27.2% year over year) and net profit attributable to controlling shareholders of ₩1.9922 trillion (up 14.6% year over year, up 5.3% from the previous quarter). First-half cumulative operating profit of ₩5.4401 trillion (+22.9%) and net profit attributable to controlling shareholders of ₩3.8846 trillion (+13.1%).With more than half of the full-year profit now fixed, the basis for this year's estimates shifts from assumption to fact. This is the direct basis for the forward P/E of 9.11x. Source
- 2026-07-23UpdateDecision to enter a treasury-share acquisition trust contract. Contract amount ₩700.0 billion, contract period 2026-07-24 to 2026-12-16, with 3,997,715 shares expected to be acquired (based on the prior trading day's close of ₩175,100). All shares are to be cancelled within one year of the trust contract ending.A smaller float improves earnings per share and book value per share. The size falls within the roughly ₩1.1439 trillion ceiling on treasury-share purchases stated in the filing. Source
- 2026-07-23UpdateShare cancellation decision. 3,997,715 common shares, about 1.1% of the 354,687,734 shares outstanding, with a planned cancellation amount of ₩700.0 billion. Under the proviso to Article 343(1) of the Commercial Act, only the share count falls while paid-in capital is unchanged.Because the company spells out cancellation rather than stopping at acquisition, the shareholder return is confirmed as effective. A lower share count is an irreversible improvement in per-share value. Source
- 2026-07-23DividendCash and in-kind dividend decision. Quarterly dividend of ₩1,155 per share, total dividend of ₩405,527,558,205, record date 2026-08-07, dividend yield on the market price of 0.7%.Confirms that quarterly cash returns have become established practice. The filing notes that the total may change with the number of shares in circulation on the record date as treasury-share purchases proceed. Source
- 2026-07-23FilingDecision to issue ₩270.0 billion of 15th-series write-down contingent capital securities (hybrid capital securities), with the entire proceeds allocated to repaying debt.Routine capital management that replaces existing borrowings with instruments recognized as capital. It reads as a step to carry large shareholder returns and capital-ratio maintenance at the same time. Source
- 2026-07-20UpdateCorrected disclosure of a share cancellation decision. The cancellation date for the 3,581,623 common shares (book value of about ₩599.9 billion) secured by July 16 under the April 23 resolution is set at 2026-12-23.Separate from the ₩700.0 billion trust in the second half, the schedule for cancelling the roughly ₩600.0 billion already secured is now fixed. Cancellations this year total about ₩1.3 trillion. Source
Figure cross-check computed ↔ external
| Metric | Computed | External | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Second-quarter and first-half 2026 results | base 2026 1 net profit 1 ₩916.5 billion | 2 net profit 1 ₩992.2 billion(+14.6%), 3 ₩884.6 billion(+13.1%), operating profit 5 ₩440.1 billion(+22.9%) | Confirmed | link |
| Recalculation of P/B (the key metric for the banking sub-sector) | 1.02x | 60 ₩119.6 billion ÷ 59 ₩48.2 billion = 1.018x | Confirmed | link |
| Shareholder returns (quarterly dividend, treasury-share acquisition and cancellation) | 1 ₩1,155, ₩700.0 billion 3,997,715 | — | Confirmed | link |
| Ceiling on treasury-share purchases | ₩700.0 billion | approx. 1 ₩143.9 billion | Confirmed | link |
| Whether any new material filings appeared after July 23 | 2026-06-10 | 2026-07-30 , 2026-07-29 | Confirmed | link |
| Full-year 2026 profit and the forward P/E | PER 9.22x | — | Unverified | — |
Recent filings Source
- 2026-06-10OwnershipOfficers'/major-shareholders' holdings report (amended)
- 2026-06-10OwnershipOfficers'/major-shareholders' holdings report
- 2026-06-05Disclosure
- 2026-06-01OwnershipOfficers'/major-shareholders' holdings report
- 2026-05-26Earnings disclosure
- 2026-05-22Disclosure
- 2026-05-22Disclosure
- 2026-05-20Disclosure
- 2026-05-20Disclosure
- 2026-05-18OwnershipLargest-shareholder ownership change report
- 2026-05-18Amended filing
- 2026-05-18Amended filing
📖 Plain-language glossary — expand if you are new to this
- P/E
- How many times a year's net profit the price is worth (lower is cheaper relative to earnings). The P/E here is on trailing (last full-year) results; for companies whose earnings swing fast (memory chips and other cyclicals/high-growth), a forward P/E on this year's expected earnings is more accurate.
- P/B
- Price relative to net assets (equity). Around 1x means it trades near book value; below 1x means below book.
- P/S
- Price relative to a year's revenue — useful for growth companies with thin earnings.
- Net debt / EV
- Net debt = interest-bearing debt − cash. Negative means more cash than debt (net cash). EV (enterprise value) = market cap + net debt, closer to what it would cost to buy the whole business.
- EV/EBIT · EV/EBITDA · EV/Sales
- Enterprise value against operating profit (EBIT), EBITDA, or revenue. Unlike P/E these reflect debt and cash; lower is cheaper relative to earnings power or sales.
- FCF / FCF yield
- Free cash flow = operating cash − capex, the cash actually left over. FCF yield = FCF ÷ market cap; higher means more cash generated per unit of market value.
- Intrinsic value (DCF)
- Future free cash flow (or, for some capex-heavy but profitable names, forecast earnings) discounted to today to estimate per-share value. Because it shifts a lot with the discount-rate and growth assumptions, it is shown as a bear/base/bull range, and the basis and assumptions are disclosed in one line beneath it.
- ROE
- How much profit the company earns in a year on its equity (%). Higher means better returns on capital.
- EPS / BPS
- Earnings per share / net assets (book value) per share.
- Operating / net margin
- Profit left from the core business / final profit after tax and interest, per unit of revenue.
- Debt ratio
- Debt relative to equity (%). Higher means more reliance on borrowing (norms vary by sector).
- Current ratio
- Assets convertible to cash within a year against debt due within a year. Above 100% leaves some short-term headroom.
- Interest coverage
- How many times operating profit covers the interest owed. Below 1x means operating profit alone struggles to cover interest.
- Dividend yield / payout ratio
- The year's dividend as a % of today's price / the share of earnings paid out as dividends.
- Revenue CAGR
- Multi-year growth expressed as a single yearly average (compound annual growth rate).
- RSI (short-term signal)
- Whether recent price action is overheated or beaten down. Above 70 is overbought, below 30 oversold.
- MA20 / MA60 (moving averages)
- The 20- and 60-day average price. Price above them signals a firmer short-term trend.
- vs 52-week high
- How far below the past year's peak the price sits now (%).
All figures are for reference only; how they read varies by sector and over time.
Sources: Korea FSC market-price API (data.go.kr), OpenDART, KRX/KIND — public data only.
Bong Stocks presents public-data-based information for reference only. It is not investment advice and contains no target prices, ratings, or buy/sell recommendations. Verify independently before making any decision.