South Korean internet giant Naver is poised to acquire a 15 percent stake in e-commerce solutions provider Cafe24 for 137.2 billion won ($119.4 million), filings showed Tuesday. Cafe24 plans to issue 3.3 million ordinary shares for the third-party rights offering to invite Naver as its new shareholder, according to filings submitted to the Financial Supervisory Service. In turn, Naver looks to acquire the stake by contributing its 310,300 treasury shares in kind, whose valuation matches newl

Market Aug. 10, 2021

Foreign investors have net purchased more bonds from January to July than in all of 2020, amid signs that Korean bonds are largely regarded as an attractive investment destination, data showed Tuesday. Foreign investors have net bought 83 trillion won ($72.2 billion) worth of Korean bonds -- including sovereign bonds, monetary stabilization bonds and bank debentures -- this year until July. The figure is higher than that of 2020, at 73 trillion won, according to data from the Korea Financial I

Market Aug. 10, 2021

KTB Asset Management has closed a 550 billion won ($478.8 million) commitment to Bridge Debt Strategies Fund IV, a pooled investment vehicle mainly targeting securitized multifamily residential housing loans in the United States, the company said Tuesday. The Seoul-based asset manager added it has attracted capital commitments from eight undisclosed South Korean institutional investors, targeting annual returns of up to 11 percent from its fund-of-funds strategy. Bridge Debt Strategies Fund I

Market Aug. 10, 2021

South Korean electric bus maker Edison Motors has created a consortium with domestic private equity firms to acquire SsangYong Motors, a troubled Korean arm of Indian auto maker Mahindra & Mahindra, its Chief Executive Officer Kang Young-kwon said Monday. Edison, headquartered in Hamyang County, South Gyeongsang Province, signed a memorandum of understanding with its financial partners, including Korea Corporate Governance Improvement, Keystone Private Equity, as well as electric vehicle pa

Market Aug. 9, 2021

Seoul-based private equity house MBK Partners founder and chairman Michael Byung-ju Kim has pledged to donate 30 billion won ($26.5 million) to the Seoul Metropolitan Government to build a public library in Seoul, MBK Partners said Sunday. The gift represents the first case where an individual‘s donation covers the entire cost of building a civic institution by Seoul’s municipal government, MBK said in a statement. The Seoul Public Kim Byung-ju Library, named after the donor, wil

Market Aug. 8, 2021

An exchange-traded fund managed by US-based Invesco Investment Management sold 2.4 percent in Nexon GT just a day after its founder Kim Jung-ju stepped down from the top post of gaming giant Nexon’s holding company NXC, a filing showed Sunday. The instrument, Invesco Elwood Global Blockchain UCITS ETF, unloaded 837,817 common shares of Nexon GT -- the only South Korea-listed subsidiary of NXC -- to cash in 10.3 billion won ($9 million) on July 30. The equity ETF dedicated to blockchain i

Market Aug. 8, 2021

South Korean political figures were cleared of any involvement in the nation’s high-profile 1.6 trillion won ($1.4 billion) hedge fund fraud, which centers on the effectively defunct private equity firm Optimus Asset Management, prosecutors announced Sunday. The Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office said that it had dismissed charges Wednesday against three ex-Optimus advisers of accepting property through arrangement and assisting fraudulent activities. They are Lee Hun-j

Market Aug. 8, 2021

Amsterdam-based APG Asset Management, a subsidiary of Dutch pension fund administrator APG, warned in a letter to the South Korean government that its failure to scrap a plan to build coal-fired power plants here will constitute a “significant risk factor” to its investment in Korea. The letter, disclosed by Seoul-based nonprofit Solutions for Our Climate Wednesday, involves three plants with a combined power capacity of 6.3 gigawatts under construction in Gangwon Province. The pri

Market Aug. 4, 2021

An investor consortium led by the Seoul-based equity firm Centroid Investment Partners has closed a $1.87 billion deal to buy a 100 percent stake in TaylorMade Golf from US private equity firm KPS Capital Partners, Centroid said Tuesday. The buyout deal will lay the groundwork for the US-based golf equipment and clothing maker to go public in the future, the Korean investor said. When TaylorMade does go public, the investor consortium will have enough room to seek a “considerable amount

Market Aug. 3, 2021

This is the final installment of a series of articles investigating financial activities of seniors amid the rapid digitalization of the finance industry. -- Ed. The birth of the National Pension Service in 1988 epitomized South Korea’s ambition to achieve economic maturity, to build a socioeconomic safety net and to materialize hardworking people’s dreams for a stable and quality life after retirement. More than three decades on, the mandatory social security pension scheme has ri

Economy Aug. 2, 2021

A South Korean investor consortium led by Gwangju-based construction conglomerate Jungheung Group has signed a memorandum of understanding to initiate talks surrounding the acquisition of a 50.75 percent stake in Daewoo Engineering & Construction, a filing showed Monday. Following the nonbinding agreement, the investor group -- comprising Jungheung Group and investment bank Mirae Asset Securities -- will carry out due diligence before signing a binding deal with the company‘s largest

Market Aug. 2, 2021

South Korea’s public pension fund, the National Pension Service, gained a cumulative 5.8 percent in the first five months of this year, a preliminary estimate showed Friday. This robust growth brought the value of the world’s third-largest pension fund to 892.3 trillion won ($775.9 billion) as of May, approaching the unprecedented 900 trillion won mark despite lingering COVID-19 uncertainties in the global capital market. The news came a day after the NPS extended Chief Investment

Market July 30, 2021

Buyout firm Hahn & Co., a proposed buyer of a controlling stake in Namyang Dairy Products, said Friday it is considering legal action against ex-Chairman Hong Won-sik, as the proposed seller delayed the deal on the date of the transaction without consent. This comes as the proposed seller put off the extraordinary shareholders meeting scheduled Friday morning by six weeks to early September, citing “more time needed to contemplate on the deal before closing upon the request of both p

Market July 30, 2021

LG Electronics has completed the sale of a 49 percent stake in its electric vehicle part splitoff for $453.3 million to create a joint venture with Magna International‘s Austrian arm, a filing showed Wednesday. As a result, the new entity LG Magna e-Powertrain will become a 51:49 joint venture of Seoul-based LG Electronics and Magna Metalforming, the Austrian affiliate of Canada-based vehicle engineering firm Magna International. The news comes seven months after the two companies ente

Market July 28, 2021

HK inno.N, South Korean pharmaceutical firm and maker of popular hangover drink Condition, is poised to raise 596.9 billion won ($516.6 million) in a forthcoming two-day initial public offering until Friday, a disclosure showed Wednesday. The IPO of the company, formerly known as CJ HealthCare, will give its private investors a chance to immediately cash in 255.8 billion won before its August listing on the Korea Exchange‘s development bourse Kosdaq. Beneficiaries will be three private

Market July 28, 2021