이 기사는 2020년 02월 05일 08시00분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

South Korea’s National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (NACF) has kicked off a process to select a pool of external managers which will manage a total of some five trillion won ($4.2 billion) of assets on its behalf.

The NACF has recently closed applications for its external asset managers, sources close to the matter said on January 30. The final results are scheduled to be announced as early as the end of February.

In the area of collective investment services, the NACF plans to choose asset managers for total eight types of portfolios: all-equity portfolio, equity-focused portfolio (about 50 percent of the equity weight), all-bond portfolio, bond-focused portfolio (about 50 percent of the bond weight), each of which is divided into domestic and international.

For discretionary investment services, which investment advisory firms and brokerage firms are eligible to apply for, only an all-equity portfolio type is available. The NACF will pick managers for a discretionary-account type and a wrap-account type each. Those selected by the NACF will receive mandates to manage its assets for about a year.

Only asset managers with more than 30 billion won ($25 million) under management for the desired portfolio type as of the end of December 2019 – or 10 billion won for those aiming to receive a mandate for international portfolios – are eligible for application. Currently, the NACF’s external managers manage a total of around five trillion won.

KG Zeroin, a South Korean investment information provider, will carry out quantitative evaluation on behalf of the NACF. Quantitative metrics will be considered in three areas: company organization and staff, investment strategies, and systems and strategies for risk management.

Along with quantitative evaluation, the NACF has introduced qualitative evaluation this year to improve the selection process.

“We added qualitative factors in the selection process because quantitative evaluation results were not sufficient to look into detailed aspects of candidates,” said a NACF official. “We plan to integrate quantitative evaluation to our overall business.”

(By reporter Heo In-hye)