South Korea‘s battery materials maker and petrochemical firm LG Chem said Tuesday it plans to commit 150 billion won ($134 million) capital to a new private equity fund that targets promising companies dedicated to electric vehicle parts and ecofriendly plastics. The committed capital will be part of IMM Credit Solution’s upcoming growth-focused Korea Battery & ESG Fund, which aims to earmark a total of 400 billion won. IMM Credit Solution is a subsidiary of Korea‘s thir

Hanwha Asset Management said Tuesday it has launched a new mobile app for retail investors wanting to buy a fund and go around third-party fund distribution channels. This is the latest move of South Korea‘s fourth-largest firm -- which has around 97 trillion won ($86.6 billion) in assets under its management -- to create its own online fund marketplace in a nation where tech-savvy consumers had few choices to buy funds other than through third-party sales channels of banks, securities br

South Korea’s securities brokerage houses are in a heated race to attract retail stock investors with an interest in the US stock market, providing more cost-competitive services and enhancing those services with technology. Their services sweeten the deal for day traders here, who are increasingly fond of US stocks such as Tesla, Apple, Amazon.com, Alphabet, Nvidia and Microsoft, as the brokerages even buy and sell stocks overnight. With the start of daylight saving time in the US, regu

Technology disruption is already playing out among the commercial banking sector in South Korea, triggering a massive transformation of their services to fend off fast-rising online-only banks launched by internet companies with no banking experience. The legacy players are tasked with increasing online presence in the market, in part by moving to establish their own respective online-only lending arms for retail customers. But such investments should be made not just to keep their market leade

South Korean private equity firm VIG Partners is eyeing private credit strategies with a new team it established Monday, the company said Tuesday. The company, overseeing 3.8 trillion won ($3.4 billion) worth of private funds mainly dedicated to midmarket buyout strategies, added that it had hired Han Young-hwan as head of credit at VIG Partners. The credit arm will focus on special situations in private credit space, looking to take advantage of price dislocation in the belief that the debt a

Less than two weeks after Kakao Bank submitted a listing application to the Korea Exchange, Kakao Pay, another finance arm of South Korean internet giant Kakao, followed suit earlier this week. Such a back-to-back announcement of their plans for initial public offerings and listing on Korea’s stock market highlights disruptive technologies that are going mainstream in the domestic financial industry and challenges that traditional banking groups here may face. Each company’s enterp

Hyundai LNG Shipping on Tuesday signed a 20-year contract to hire up to six liquefied natural gas carriers owned by Malaysia-based Petronas LNG starting in 2024, amid a global race to achieve economies of scale in the wet bulk shipping industry.　 The deal, which involves 174,000-cubic-meter LNG vessels, could be the largest in South Korea’s history in terms of cargo capacity, said IMM Private Equity, which controls the shipping agent dedicated to LNG carriers. The vessels will

While the demand for private debt investments in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to continue to soar, private credit investors -- which offer nonbank financing to companies or development projects there -- should take advantage of opportunities and be mindful of gaps in between countries, experts said. During the two-day PDI APAC Summit Virtual Experience 2021 that ended Thursday, international investors, asset managers and other investment professionals flocked to discuss opportunities tha

South Korean educational technology startup Databank said Sunday it has completed a $2.7 million series A funding round and plans to use the proceeds to expand its artificial intelligence-powered services and widen its client base. Joining the latest round were domestic early-stage venture capital houses Company K Partners, Intervest and KB Investment. The fundraising brought the startup’s post-series value to $11.5 million, up sevenfold from the previous round of funding, according to th

The world‘s largest asset management firm BlackRock has sold a 1.18 percent stake in South Korea’s home appliance rental service firm Coway for 50 billion won ($44.7 million), a filing showed Thursday. Following the transactions, the combined equity holding of BlackRock Fund Advisors and 13 affiliated entities in Coway has been reduced to 3.83 percent, and is no longer subject to filing obligations as a blockholder of the company, which specializes in door-to-door rental services o

South Korea’s impact investing scene is facing a call for a standardized tool to measure the social impact a startup generates via its business, as the demand to address social challenges is on the rise and more young entrepreneurs are looking to take on the challenges. Such a tool is key to leveraging social ventures’ impact and sustaining their solution for international problems in the long run, in order to assure investors that their investment goes to the right social ventures,

Seoul-based Shinhan Asset Management said Thursday it plans to implement an equity investing framework associated with the environmental, social and governance factors for its domestic large-cap equity funds. Starting in May, 16 publicly pooled domestic equity funds managed by the fifth-largest asset management firm in South Korea must have at least 70 percent exposure to stocks that received the integrated ESG ratings of “BB” or above. The same strategy has so far been exercised

No coal power plants will be profitable in South Korea before the end of their expected lifetimes -- 30 years on average -- indicating coal power plants face a dismal financial future, a study showed Wednesday. An increase in renewable energy penetration in Korea and the newly introduced greenhouse gas emission cap system here are expected to trigger a significant decrease of coal power plant capacity factors, according to a report dubbed “End in sight: How South Korea can force coal off

South Korea’s asset management companies are beefing up their drive to take environmental, social and governance factors into account, by endorsing an international climate initiative and by creating an internal body to monitor the green investing process. On Tuesday, three Seoul-based asset management firms -- KB Asset Management, Samsung Asset Management and its subsidiary Samsung Active Asset Management -- announced that they have joined a cohort of some 2,000 organizations from 7

This is a part of a series of interviews and analyses of South Korea’s top bankers, policymakers and investors leading the financial industry here. This is the fourth installment. -- Ed. Korea Development Bank Chairman Lee Dong-gull, the first KDB chief in 26 years to serve a second term, has sought to change the public image of the state-run investment bank as an inconsiderate spender of unlimited amounts of public money to indebted companies. Since assuming office in 2017, Lee, 68, ha

Private Debt Investor, a publication dedicated to the global private debt investing scene, said Monday it plans to hold a virtual event this week on exploring opportunities and challenges in private debt investing across the Asia-Pacific region. The PDI APAC Summit Virtual Experience 2021 will be held from Wednesday to Thursday. The inaugural two-day virtual event will feature investors Aware Super, Allianz Investment Management, NGS Super, International Finance Corp. and Japan Post Bank,

An investor group led by South Korean builder Dongbu Corp. signed a deal to acquire a controlling stake in debt-saddled shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction, filings showed Friday. According to the filings, a consortium composed of Dongbu and local private equity firm Echoprime Private Equity will buy a combined 55.7 million common shares, or 66.85 percent voting rights, from eight banks including the state-run Korea Development Bank and the Philippines-based BDO Unibank. T

South Korean institutional investor, the Construction Workers Mutual Aid Association, has selected four domestic external partners for its 60 billion-won ($53.7 million) commitment to have exposure to private equities and venture capital, an official said Friday. The institutional investor, dedicated to the welfare of workers in the field of construction, has decided to allocate a combined 40 billion won to Dominus Investment and Stic Investments for its private equity exposure. The external p

The burgeoning co-investment market in South Korea has reached maturity enough to offer attractive opportunities for investors, US-based investment firm Adams Street Partners said Thursday. Institutional investors that carry out co-investment strategies with its private equity fund managers in Korea and abroad are likely to take advantage of the private equity market in the fourth-largest economy in Asia, a trade powerhouse with growth potential in select industries, noted Dave Brett, partner

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