An instant 425.8 billion-won ($375.1 million) selloff by major shareholders of South Korean pop music agency Big Hit Entertainment appears to have caused a sharp decline of the Big Hit stock price in the days after its listing, market watchers said Thursday. Two special purpose companies including the fourth-largest shareholder Mainstone -- which owned a combined 9.16 percent of common shares -- immediately sold nearly half of their holdings in Big Hit, after the company went public o

South Korea‘s internet giant Kakao is planning to issue $300 million worth of exchangeable bonds to accumulate the dry powder for its future mergers and acquisitions activities, the company said in a filing Thursday. The US dollar-denominated exchangeable bonds will be issued privately on Wednesday on the Singapore Exchange. Investors in the hybrid securities will be offered straight bonds with zero interest. Once the bonds mature in April 2023, the hybrid security investor will be offe

South Korea’s financial watchdog on Tuesday recommended that Lime Asset Management lose its license, the toughest penalty possible, for defrauding its investors and costing them trillions of won.  The FSS decision followed a meeting to decide the level of sanctions it would advise the regulator, the Financial Services Commission, to impose on the Seoul-based hedge fund manager. If the FSC agrees, Lime’s license as a privately pooled fund manager could be revoked as early as Nov

JPMorgan Asset Management has reduced its stake in South Korean securities brokerage house Kiwoom Securities to cash out 26.1 billion won ($22.9 million), in an apparent profit-making move, a filing showed Tuesday. Since August, Hong Kong-based JPMorgan Asset Management Asia Pacific and five affiliated parties had unloaded a combined 1.11 percent stake in the Seoul-based brokerage house without a brick-and-mortar branches. The transaction cut JPMorgan’s stock holding to 3.9 percent, stee

South Korea’s sovereign wealth fund Korea Investment Corp. was seeing a stock price fall in Ontario-based marijuana maker Canopy Growth, as its $18 million bet on the company lost glitter in the first half of 2020, a lawmaker said Monday. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s Rep. Jung Sung-ho added the investment in the pot producer is a point of contention, not only because KIC’s bet has not led to an instant success, but also because investing in marijuana makers is an &l

London-based financial intelligence company PEI said Sunday it planned to hold PDI Seoul Forum Virtual Experience on Nov. 10. The virtual event, organized by PEI’s publication Private Debt Investor, is expected to offer participants a glimpse of private debt investment strategies, debt investor preferences in asset allocations and fund manager selection and monitoring processes amid challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the global capital market, PEI said. The event will feature

South Korea’s buyout firm IMM Private Equity is looking for a buyer for Taihan Electric Wire starting November, five years after it invested 300 billion won ($261.7 million) in the then-debt-saddled company for a controlling stake, according to sources Friday. Shares of Taihan, the nation’s No. 2 power transmission wire maker, rose sharply on the Korea Exchange’s main bourse Kospi on Friday. At 12:30 p.m., Taihan shares were trading 9.8 percent higher than the previous day&rs

Despite the containment of the coronavirus pandemic nationwide, South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy, is still sitting on an economic powder keg, high-ranking officials of credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings said Thursday. While Korea and other Asia-Pacific economies are seeing a relatively swift recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to timely policies and boosted trade, they appear to be far off from pre-COVID levels, Shaun Roache, chief Asia-Pacific economist at S&am

Troubled hedge fund mis-selling scandal that led to losses for South Korean investors and the fund managers’ alleged collusion with ruling party lawmakers and former Cheong Wa Dae officials were at the center stage during the parliamentary audit on the Financial Supervisory Service on Tuesday. FSS Gov. Yoon Suk-heun pledged to take stern actions against those responsible for the mis-selling, as the financial watchdog‘s investigation into managers such as Lime Asset Management and O

Shinhan Financial Group said Monday that minority shareholder BNP Paribas has bought a stake worth an undisclosed amount in the South Korean banking group by securing the minimum threshold to keep the strategic partnership intact after a scheduled equity increase. According to Shinhan, BNP Paribas is set to defend the partnership even after the 1.2 trillion won ($1 billion) equity increase by inviting new shareholders -- Affinity Equity Partners and Baring Private Equity Asia -- on Oct. 20.

KB Financial Group and the Korea Growth Investment Corp. said Sunday that they would select two external partners to establish funds worth at least 30 billion won ($26 million) as part of their five-year social impact investing initiative. KB Financial Group will commit 15 billion won to the two external partners combined, and K-Growth will provide 5 billion won. The selected partners will pool at least 10 billion won to create the funds by the first half of 2021, according to K-Growth’s

Tencent-backed online movie ticket booking platform Maoyan Entertainment has unloaded its stake in YG Entertainment worth a combined 22.1 billion won ($19.2 million) since August, disclosures showed Sunday. The selloff reduced the Chinese company’s control over South Korea‘s major entertainment powerhouse -- home to K-pop groups Big Bang, Blackpink and the newly-debuted Treasure -- to 5.78 percent, from the previous 8.09 percent. In September alone, Maoyan divested a combine

International Finance Corp., a global development institution, said on Wednesday it hosted a virtual workshop targeting Korean infrastructure developers and investors to allow them to identify new opportunities post-COVID-19. IFC officials discussed the upsides and challenges of public-private partnership projects in Southeast and Central Asia and highlighted the role of IFC to turn the PPP projects into more bankable ones, according to IFC. Speakers also focused on environmental and social ri

South Korea’s stock market saw a combined 498 trillion won ($428 billion) worth of short selling transactions from 2015 to 2019, but a high bar exists for retail investors wishing to engage in the practice, a lawmaker said Monday. Ruling Democratic Party Rep. Lee Jung-mun said retail investors need greater access to short selling, and called for the introduction of legislation before the temporary ban on the short selling of listed shares here expires in March 2021. The annual volume o

After recent success in the market for Seoul office space, London-based investment firm Actis is looking to further invest in Seoul area real estate, this time with a focus on industrial assets. The company is among those looking to invest in data centers in South Korea, as demand spikes. As server requirements expand beyond what companies can accommodate in their main offices, firms are looking to relocate their servers to the cloud or a third-party facility. Both options require data cente

Policy lender Korea Development Bank Chairman Lee Dong-gull said Monday that he is closely reviewing SsangYong Motor‘s fate as a sustainable automaker while refraining from mentioning its plan to provide financial assistance to the cash-strapped company. The focal point of SsangYong Motor must be “sustainability of business operations,” along with the shareholder‘s responsible actions and burden-sharing of all parties concerned, such as shareholders, the company and the

A ban on short selling shares on Korean bourses for most investors curtailed the practice by nearly 97 percent, data showed Monday. Institutional investors in South Korean stock market short sold 20.4 billion won ($17.4 million) worth of stocks a day on average from March 16 to end-August, according to data obtained by Democratic Party Rep. Park Kwang-on from the watchdog Financial Supervisory Service. That was down from 654.2 billion won a day from January to March 13.　 Certain authorized i

Korea Investment & Securities, a Seoul-based brokerage house, said Sunday that it has started selling a new product to indirectly invest in equities of global companies dedicated to infrastructure projects in developed countries. The new product is a feeder fund of the Global Listed Infrastructure Fund by Sydney-based First Sentier Investors. Local investment firm Kiwoom Asset Management is an underlying manager of the structured investment product. The product for South Korean end-inves

The Export and Import Bank of Korea and International Finance Corp. have agreed to expand their collaboration in developing countries and to link Korean firms with more opportunities overseas, the financial institutions said Sunday. The two signed a new memorandum of understanding on Friday to focus on creating new jobs, promoting smart cities and boosting health care, among other measures to identify and finance projects in countries largely in Southeast and Central Asia. The collaboration wi

Korean children have received a combined 1.3 trillion won ($1.1 billion) worth of assets through some 9,700 gifts that are subject to taxation, data showed Wednesday. The value of the combined assets as of 2018 -- comprising of financial assets, properties and securities -- surged over twofold from that of 2014 at 588.4 billion won, according to data from the National Tax Service compiled by ruling Democratic Party Rep. Yang Hyang-ja. In the same period, the number of taxable gifts rose 92 per