Shares of Hanjin KAL plunged Monday as a hostile takeover bid of an activist investor group came to a standstill the week prior. Hanjin KAL, the holding company of the Hanjin conglomerate that controls flag carrier Korean Air Lines, dipped 7.8 percent on the Korean bourse at Monday’s close, as nearly 300 billion won ($266 million) in market cap evaporated within a single day. Hanjin KAL‘s share price hit a 52-week low Monday morning, trading as low as 51,400 won apiece. This com

Market April 5, 2021

Yoon Suk-heun, chief of South Korea‘s financial watchdog, pledged on Friday to beef up its oversight to prevent a spillover of risks associated with environmental, social and governance factors in the Korean finance industry. In a keynote speech at a seminar held in Seoul on Friday, the Financial Supervisory Service governor pledged to shape up a framework to gauge climate risks that could undermine the health of financial companies, in the nation where such standardized framework is pra

Market April 2, 2021

South Korea‘s institutional investors were seen averting the COVID-19 crisis to take decent returns, and pledged to increase their exposure to alternative assets to control the latent volatility risks. The Korean Teachers’ Credit Union said Friday it reaped a windfall in 2020 by taking advantage of the stock market rebound following the depths of the COVID-19 crisis. The KTCU, Korea‘s second-largest institutional investor, said it has returned 10 percent for 2020, or 3.3 tri

Market April 2, 2021

South Korea‘s largest institutional investor the National Pension Service gained 2.35 percent in January from its allocation, its preliminary data showed Wednesday. The monthly disclosure also showed that the NPS, the world’s third-largest pension fund, has slightly cut its stock weighting from December 2020, indicating that the pension fund’s rebalancing effort continued against the backdrop of the record bull run in domestic bourses. Of the total 855.3 trillion won ($756.2

Market March 31, 2021

US investment firm BlackRock said Wednesday that it aims to sell its onshore retail fund business in South Korea to a local peer, DGB Asset Management, as part of its business restructuring in the country. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval in Korea and the terms of the sale were not disclosed, BlackRock added. After the restructuring, BlackRock’s Korean arm will focus on serving Korean institutional investors with offshore investment solutions. The Korean arm, BlackRock

Market March 31, 2021

A multistrategy hedge fund by a South Korean manager logged the highest annual net return for 2020 in the Asia-Pacific region, data showed Wednesday. The hedge fund, Gudo TAO Fund 1, net returned 124.99 percent, topping the list of Asia-Pacific-based multistrategy hedge funds through 2020, according to data from international market data tracker Preqin. The fund outperformed peers managed by Singapore’s Caygan Capital as well as Hong Kong‘s Factorial Management and BRIC Neutron A

Market March 31, 2021

The combined value of KB Asset Management’s environmental, social and corporate governance funds exceeded 3 trillion won ($2.7 billion), the South Korean company said Wednesday. Its ESG-themed funds pooled investments worth some 600 billion won during the first quarter alone, added the Seoul-based asset management firm. In terms of the assets under its management, funds targeting alternative assets came to 2.1 trillion won, while those dedicated to equities and exchange-traded funds at

Market March 31, 2021

Bill Hwang, the Korean American trader behind US market unrest involving lossmaking trades of New York-based Archegos Capital Management, was said to be one of the first Wall Street trailblazers in equity investing in East Asia including South Korea, until his fall from grace. The South Korean-born hedge fund trader is said to have played a role in bringing his mentor and investment guru Julian Robertson’s attention to the crisis-battered East Asian market in the late 1990s, including his

Market March 30, 2021

IMM Private Equity has agreed to sell a 40 percent stake in Taihan Electric Wire to Hoban E&C for 251.8 billion won ($222.2 million) to exit from the industrial wire maker, a filing showed Monday. This will mark the first exit announced this year by South Korea’s third-largest private equity firm that has $5.4 billion-worth of assets under management. The deal involving Taihan’s 342.6 million common shares is scheduled to close on May 31. Hoban E&C will become Taihan&rsquo

Market March 29, 2021

More South Koreans are becoming inclined to stock investing as they seek to take advantage of a turnaround from the COVID-19 financial market crisis, a survey showed Sunday. Of 1,000 respondents aged between 19 and 59, 67.8 percent said they were interested in investing via stocks, according to a survey conducted in February by Seoul-based market research firm Macromill Embrain Trend Monitor. Among them, 52.7 percent said they had begun to take an interest in stock investing since January 2020

Market March 28, 2021

Mirae Asset Global Investments, an asset management arm of investment banking group Mirae Asset, reaped a record annual profit for 2020 as its efforts to diversify its product pipeline and beef up its global profile paid off. The latest filing by the second-largest asset management firm in South Korea, overseeing 112.1 trillion won ($99 billion) in assets as of end-2020, showed that its net profit throughout last year came to 256.4 billion won, up 66.2 percent from a year prior. The figure m

Market March 28, 2021

This article is part of analysis and interviews by The Korea Herald‘s finance desk staff exploring South Korea’s budding ESG investment market, as well as its potential, impact and challenges. -- Ed. The sprouting demand for responsible investing options is reshaping the capital market landscape in South Korea, as financial products associated with environmental, social and governance factors are showing fast-paced growth. The sharp upsurge in both demand and supply, on the other

Market March 25, 2021

Seoul-based real estate investment firm Mastern Investment Management said on Thursday that its subsidiary in the United States, Mastern America, began operation earlier this week. The launch will help Mastern, which was overseeing 21.7 trillion won ($19.1 billion) worth of assets as of March, to streamline its onsite due diligence for its outbound investment into the US market, enhance its capability for deal-sourcing and portfolio property management in the US and foster partnerships with US

Market March 25, 2021

South Korean investors‘ net capital inflow into Coupang shares came to $87.5 million in its first week on the New York Stock Exchange, data showed Monday. The figure was the highest among foreign stocks during the cited period, according to data from the Korea Securities Depository. Among Korea-based foreign stock traders, Coupang in its first five trading days was hotter than US electronic devices giant Apple, US gaming firm Roblox, SoftBank’s internet subsidiary Z Holdings and e

Market March 22, 2021

South Korea’s largest public pension body, the National Pension Service, on Friday denied local news reports that it was considering reweighting its investment portfolio and raising its domestic stock allocation in contrast with an earlier pledge to cut its exposure. “The NPS Investment Management Committee does not plan to discuss readjusting its target asset allocation with regards to the hike of domestic equity exposure,” the NPS said in a statement. The statement rebutt

Market March 19, 2021