이 기사는 2020년 02월 24일 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 shortlisted six PE firms and consortia from nine proposals submitted earlier this month, in a process to select three external alternative managers.

Yellow Umbrella, with more than 11 trillion won ($10 billion) in assets under management, has rounded up the shortlist of this year’s selection of PE managers that will manage a combined 60 billion won ($50 million) of its blind commitments.

Yellow Umbrella will hold a presentation competition among the shortlisted candidates, followed by due diligence on a finalist before announcing the final result.

Included in the shortlist are a consortium of Korea Investment Private Equity and SKS Private Equity and a consortium of BNW Investment and Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK). Both consortia also have been included in the shortlist of PE managers which, if selected, would receive anchor investments from Korea Growth Investment Corp. (K-Growth) – the country’s fund-of-funds operator – and Korea Development Bank (KDB) to launch funds dedicated to investing in the materials, parts and equipment sectors.

“This year Yellow Umbrella has removed the qualification that PE 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.”

Starting from this year, Yellow Umbrella will choose external alternative managers twice a year, not just once. It has set a fund’s hard cap at 200 billion won ($169 million) this time, while a maximum fund size is expected to be raised in the second selection process scheduled later this year.

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)