SEOUL, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) said on Tuesday that it will pay a dividend, after reporting a forecast-beating quarterly net profit.
The announcement by South Korea's fifth-largest bank comes as Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd is nearing the completion of due diligence to buy a stake in KEB for about $4.5 billion.
KEB said the board of directors had agreed to pay shareholders an 87 billion won ($78.12 million) dividend or 135 won per share for the second consecutive quarter.
U.S. private equity firm Lone Star, which has been trying to sell KEB for at least four years, has a 51 percent stake in KEB.
KEB reported a July-September net profit of 290 billion won, above the 263.1 billion won average forecast of nine analysts polled by the Thomson Reuters. It compared with 422.1 billion won a year earlier and 210.9 billion won in the previous quarter.
Loan-loss provisioning fell to 86.8 billion won from 239.6 billion won in the prior quarter.
Meanwhile, KEB appointed Chief Executive Larry Klane to the position of the board chairman after Richard Wacker resigned for personal reasons.
"Korea Exchange Bank is at an important moment with the stake sale by the biggest shareholder going on," Klane said in a press release.
ANZ, Australia's No.4 bank, began due diligence on KEB in mid-August, led by Chief Executive Michael Smith, architect of the bank's Asian strategy.
Smith said earlier that the bank was on track to reach its target of achieving 20 percent of its profit from Asia and lifting the target to a third in the medium-term driven by acquisitions and expansion.
He would visit Seoul for the G20 business summit this week but was not planning to meet any KEB officials, according to KEB. (Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Chris Lewis)