이 기사는 2020년 02월 13일 08시00분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

Yellow Umbrella, South Korea’s mutual-aid association for small and mid-sized business owners under Korea Federation of Small and Medium-sized Businesses (KBIZ), has received strong interest from private equity firms as its process to select external alternative managers moves forward.

Yellow Umbrella, with more than 11 trillion won ($10 billion) in total assets, has closed applications for its external alternative managers last week. Nine domestic private equity firms and consortia – including a consortium of Korea Investment Private Equity (KI PE) and SKS Private Equity, a consortium of BNW Investment and Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK), and KTB Private Equity – have submitted proposals to obtain capital commitments from the mutual-aid association.

“This year Yellow Umbrella has removed the qualification that asset managers have a certain level of commitments from domestic institutional investors,” said an industry insider. “It seems that PE firms that recently secured commitments from other anchor investors have also submitted proposals to Yellow Umbrella.”

Indeed, both a KI PE-SKS PE consortium and a BNW-IBK consortium have recently submitted proposals to get capital commitments from Korea Growth Investment Corp. (K-Growth), which is the government-backed fund of fund operator, and Korea Development Bank (KDB) for funds dedicated to investments in the materials, parts and equipment sectors. KTB Private Equity also received anchor capital from a fund of funds run by Korea Venture Investment Corp last year.

Starting from this year, Yellow Umbrella will choose external alternative managers twice a year, not just once. It plans to pick three or less firms this time to provide a combined 60 billion won ($50 million) in capital commitments. Yellow Umbrella has set a fund’s hard cap at 200 billion won ($169 million). A maximum fund size is expected to be raised in the second selection process scheduled later this year.

“Yellow Umbrella has altered its investment program after restructuring its business last year,” said an industry insider.

In 2019, KBIZ separated its asset management unit from the Mutual Aid Fund Division to elevate it to an independent division, accelerating efforts to enhance the competence and independence of the asset management team since Chairman Kim Ki-mun took office last March.

(By reporter Kim Byung-yoon)