NextChapter, a South Korean startup designed to acquire small online native brands active on ecommerce platforms including Coupang, has raised a seed round equity funding to scale up its business largely inspired by a success of US unicorn Thrasio. Joining the round were domestic venture capital houses Klim Ventures and Fast Ventures, as well as foreign VCs BlueRun Ventures and Goodwater Capital. The amount of equity funding remains to be undisclosed. NextChapter said the company will use the

Baemin Hyundai Card, a food delivery-focused private label credit card product, has attracted over 100,000 users in eight months since the launch in November, card issuer Hyundai Card said Thursday. The cardusers are to redeem reward points in the form of “Baemin points,” which can be used like cash exclusively for food delivery orders through Baemin, South Korea‘s largest food delivery app. Baemin Hyundai Card users have food delivered through the Baemin app an average of 9

Convenience store franchise operator GS Retail said Wednesday it inked a deal to acquire a controlling stake in online pet care retailer startup Pet Friends through working with local private equity house IMM Private Equity.  Upon completion of the deal, GS Retail and IMM PE is expected to control a combined 95 percent of shares in Pet Friends, a company dedicated to delivery of pet products, consultation and snack sampling tests through an online channel, from founder and CEO Kim Chang-wo

South Korean clothing company F&F is set to commit capital of $350.5 million to take part in a private equity firm-led acquisition of California-based golf equipment maker TaylorMade Golf, a filing showed Tuesday. The outfit maker, dedicated to licensed productions for brands such as MLB and Discovery, is taking the place of local rival The Nature Holdings, which on Monday withdrew from its $87.6 million commitment to the deal. According to a disclosure filed with the Financial Superviso

South Korean companies seeking to go public are being sent back to the drawing board time and again, as the Financial Supervisory Service insists on clearer grounds for proposed share prices in its attempt to prevent overvaluation. Whether intended or not, this often leads to the downward revision of the price band by companies seeking initial public offerings, according to market observers, who stress growing macroeconomic uncertainties in the liquidity-driven market and a lack of consistency

Travel and leisure platform operator Yanolja completed a $1.7 billion investment round by sole investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2, the company said on Thursday. Yanolja said the company will use the proceeds to scale digital transformation of the global travel and hospitality industry and expand its technology offerings in new markets. The company plans to build and operate an advanced global travel platform by enhancing its automated solutions using artificial intelligence and personalized offe

BlackRock Real Assets said Thursday it has closed its first investment in South Korea’s offshore wind sector, in line with the country’s renewable energy transition initiative. The New York-based asset managing arm dedicated to real estate and infrastructure investment acquired a 100 percent equity stake in renewables developer Korea Renewable Energy Development & Operation Holdings, formerly known as Igis Private Equity. The transaction price was not disclosed. BlackRock Real

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a catalyst for changing the way of assessing the value of a privately-owned company in the private capital market in South Korea, said a veteran investment professional on Thursday. The pandemic has accelerated both the demand and supply of services and products associated with the digital transformation and energy transition. This phenomenon triggers a bipolarization of target company valuation, Chai Jin-ho, executive managing partner at STIC Investments, said i

IMM Private Equity, the third-largest private equity firm in Seoul, with $5.4 billion assets under management, is in talks to become the largest shareholder of South Korea’s largest kitchen and interior furniture goods manufacturer Hanssem, a filing showed Wednesday. The proposed strategic investor and the seller group has signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the transaction. Hanssem did not disclose the proposed acquisition price. This gives IMM PE the exclusive rights to nego

More industries are being disrupted by technology, and more companies in South Korea are operating across multiple jurisdictions, often leading to complexities in international legal disputes. This is reshaping the way Korean law firms deliver legal services to domestic clients, by exploring new industrial trends, organizing its lawyers and creating new legal services for clients in response to the trends, a top attorney of a Korean full-service law firm said. “Corporate clients increa

Property and casualty insurance firm Chubb said Tuesday it has appointed Edward Kopp as the new country president for its general insurance business in Korea. The announcement marks Kopp‘s return to the position that he had served in from 2013 to 2018. Kopp will replace the incumbent Edward Ler, who has been appointed to Head of Southeast Asia for Chubb. Kopp, currently Chubb‘s Asia Pacific Head for Accident & Health, has more than 25 years of experience in the financial servi

Credit ratings agency S&P Global Ratings revised South Korea’s economic growth outlook for 2021 by 0.4 percentage point to 4 percent Wednesday. The revision comes six months after the agency projected the Asia’s fourth-largest economy to grow 3.6 percent in January, which was then deemed more optimistic than the government’s projection. “We’ve always been optimistic about Korea’s recovery prospect. This year, we see a growth of 4 percent and next year at

Jungheung Group said Tuesday it would advance the real estate development prowess of Daewoo Engineering & Construction, as the conglomerate aims to complete the acquisition of the South Korea‘s sixth-largest construction company within this year. Once the proposed acquisition is complete, the Gwangju-based builder dedicated to housing construction, civil engineering and real estate development, will help Daewoo E&C diversify its business portfolio by strengthening the pillar of r

Tesla, Apple and AMC Entertainment were the most-bought foreign stocks among South Koreans in the first half of the year, data showed Monday. US electric vehicle maker Tesla drew buy orders of $9.6 billion from Korea-domiciled investors during the January-June period, topping the list of the most actively traded foreign stocks, according to data from the Korea Securities Depository. The same stocks worth $7.9 billion were sold by Korean traders over the cited period. Korean investors‘ p

KDB Investment, a controlling shareholder of Daewoo Engineering & Construction have picked Jungheung Group, a local construction company, as a preferred bidder for acquiring the country‘s sixth-largest builder, the proposed seller said Monday. The announcement sets the stage for Jungheung to further negotiate with KDB Investment, which holds 210.9 million common shares, or a 50.75 percent stake, in Daewoo E&C. The Jungheung-led consortium outbid the investor group of builder DS

As global central banks talk of tapering the huge liquidity provisions they made to cope with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, South Korean asset owners are rethinking their current asset allocation strategies. The 14th Institutional Investor Week Korea, a virtual conference hosted by Hong Kong-based publication AsianInvestor from June 21-25, invited discussions of how Korean institutional investors were preparing for the possibility of increased inflation and interest rate hikes. Histo

Korea Investment Corp., South Korea‘s sole sovereign wealth fund, pledged to increase its exposure to alternative assets to 21 percent by 2024, from 16.1 percent as of May 2021, its Chief Executive Officer Jin Seung-ho told reporters Thursday. The institutional investor, managing $183.1 billion in assets as of end-2020, aims to maximize its long-term expected return by capitalizing on the risk of tying up capital in less liquid assets, and to spread out the risk into various asset classe

Seoul-based financial technology startup Tru Technologies said Wednesday it raised series A investment worth $3.1 million from Korean investors. Joining the latest round were Hana Financial Investment, Hanwha Investment & Securities, KB Investment, Kiwoom Investment, Korea Growth Investment Corp., Shinhan Capital and Stonebridge Ventures. The fundraising comes in line with the growth of its electronic securities lending platform, called TruWeb. The platform, launched in 2020, has offered

SK Inc. said Wednesday that its board had approved an initial public offering of its wholly-owned subsidiary SK REITs in the second half. This opens doors to SK REITs' plan to raise 231.2 billion won ($204.3 million) from the IPO, or 5,000 won apiece, as suggested in the prospectus earlier this month. Korea Investment & Securities, Samsung Securities and SK Securities will be underwriters of the IPO. SK REITs will start trading on the Korea Exchange‘s main board Kospi, followin

The Korea Development Bank and Korea Growth Investment Corp. (K-Growth) said Monday they had selected 12 external managers to create a fresh 750 billion-won ($664 million) fund by the end of 2021 to support South Korea’s New Deal policy. With the announcement, the two institutions approached their year-end fundraising target of a total of 4 trillion won in commmitments for the policy fund this year, out of the total 20 trillion-won target for 2021 to 2025, in the plan first unveiled in S