A looming legal battle between a top insurance firm and an issuer of derivative-linked securities raises concerns over the financial product -- whose underlying asset, a trade finance fund, had deferred redemption. Samsung Life Insurance, which sold over 53 billion won ($47 million) worth of DLS products through a privately pooled fund, is awaiting court proceedings against NH Investment & Securities, the brokerage firm that issued the DLS for the seller, the company said Wednesday. A Sa

Market April 14, 2021

Blockchain professionals and experts flocked to Seoul on Tuesday to discuss the latest trends surrounding digital assets. Topics at the seminar, dubbed World Blockchain Summit Marvels Seoul 2021, revolved around wealth transfers with the arrival of digital assets, digital transformation in the world of finance, blockchain-driven business models and regulatory hurdles, as well as the world of decentralized finance. Digital asset wallet developer Bitberry’s Chief Executive Officer Yoo Ja

Market April 13, 2021

Macquarie Investment Management Korea has been rebranded as Feynman Asset Management upon an acquisition deal proposed by a South Korean private equity firm, the company said Monday. The asset management company, which oversees some 1.3 trillion won ($1.2 billion) worth of assets, has named Kim Eun-soo to lead the company. Kim is the former head of the Korean unit of Hong Kong-based Mason Group Holdings. Feynman Invest, a fledgling private equity firm, gained regulatory approval from the Fin

Market April 12, 2021

Behind the growing number of cross-border business deals both small and large in South Korea is not only the nation’s technological competitiveness, but also its legal certainty, top lawyers here said. “As law firms and attorneys take themselves to the next level, Korea’s legal system is increasingly becoming predictable,” said Sky Yang, a managing partner and chief financial officer of Bae, Kim & Lee. That’s not to mention Korea’s civil codes influence

Market April 11, 2021

More initial public offerings of South Korean companies are on deck, as the IPO landscape here is increasingly becoming a heated battleground for investors searching for an immediate return after their listing on the stock market. Korea’s IPO market appears to have returned to the pre-pandemic level, as liquidity-driven investors are rushing to opportunities and regulators are shaping out rules to give IPO stock investors a fairer chance of allocation. In the first quarter, 14 companies

Market April 11, 2021

Foreign investors have a hard time navigating South Korea’s “unique” private equity investment landscape, having to face obstacles such as family-run conglomerates’ dominance in the domestic industry, a private equity professional said in a virtual seminar on Thursday. “South Korea is very unique market,” Chue En Yaw, managing director and head of private equity funds at Temasek-owned Azalea Asset Management, told audience of the virtual seminar hosted by ca

Market April 8, 2021

Seoul-based Samsung Asset Management and Canadian counterpart Manulife Investment Management have signed a memorandum of understanding for the bilateral strategic alliance, Samsung Asset said Thursday. The largest asset management firm in South Korea, overseeing some 280 trillion won ($250 billion) assets in March, will team up with Manulife IM to explore opportunities in overseas alternative investing, private assets and specialized public market strategies. The partnership will also allow the

Market April 8, 2021

South Korea’s financial watchdog said Tuesday that it holds NH Investment & Securities, the nation’s second-largest brokerage firm by net assets, entirely accountable for the misselling practices associated with the Optimus Asset Management alleged hedge fund fraud. The Financial Supervisory Service ordered NH Investment to compensate end-investors for losses of some 300 billion won ($267 million) incurred in 326 cases they brought to the Financial Dispute Conciliation Committe

Market April 6, 2021

Hotel transaction volume in South Korea’s capital city of Seoul fell sharply in 2020 as travel restrictions stemming from the coronavirus pandemic sent shock waves through the accommodation industry, data showed Tuesday. The 22 hotel transactions that closed in Seoul last year amounted to 701.8 billion won ($624.8 million), down 53 percent from a year prior, according to data from real estate services firm GenstarMate. In the meantime Seoul’s hotel occupancy rate, a key indicator

Market April 6, 2021

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