이 기사는 2021년 07월 09일 07:30 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

South Korea’s largest pension scheme National Pension Service (NPS) has completed its annual tender process recently. Investment firms are expected to move quickly to participate in tenders launched by Korea Teachers Credit Union (KTCU).

NPS has recently completed its tenders to award private equity (PE) mandates worth a combined 1.2 trillion won ($1 billion). NPS selected Keistone Partners, E&F PE, Crescendo Equity Partners, and EUM PE for its PE fund category. For the co-investment fund category, the pension fund picked KB Asset Management and SKS PE.

Following NPS, KTCU issued a request for proposals (RFP) in May to award a PE mandate of 475 billion won in total to eight managers.

KTCU plans to put 400 billion won in total into five mid-sized PE firms and allocate another 75 billion won to three rookie managers. KTCU is likely to announce the final results in mid-July.

Teachers’ Pension, a South Korean pension scheme for private school educators, issued a RFP earlier this week and said it is looking for four domestic managers to award a PE mandate totaling 200 billion won.

Last year, the pension fund awarded a mandate worth 150 billion won to three managers including MBK Partners, SkyLake Investment, and Stonebridge. It plans to finish the selection process in August.

Yellow Umbrella, the country’s mutual-aid association for small and mid-sized business owners, is currently seeking domestic asset managers to award PE and venture capital (VC) mandates. A RFP issued on July 1 stated up to 240 billion won will be allocated to eight PE blind-pool funds and 20 billion won to two newly-established PE firms. Yellow Umbrella will receive proposals this month and make final selections in September.

In the first half of this year, Korea Development Bank (KDB) and Korea Growth Investment Corp (K-Growth) led annual tender processes.

Small- and mid-sized investment firms experienced fierce competition in the tender processes and the trend is likely to continue in the second half of this year.

KDB selected a consortium of Stonebridge and Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK), IMM Investment, Korea Investment Partners, a consortium of LX Investment and IBK Capital, Shinhan Venture Investment, Aju IB Investment, E&F PE, Q Capital Partners, and Crescendo Equity Partners to award a New Deal investment mandate totaling 745 billion won at the beginning of this year.

In June, KDB selected EUM PE, TS Investment, WWG Asset Management, and Nautic Investment to award a New Deal mandate totaling 280 billion won.

Construction Workers Mutual Aid Association (CW) and the Export–Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM) conducted tenders to hire managers for their blind-pool funds in April. CW awarded a combined 40 billion won of mandates to Dominus Investment and STIC Investments while KEXIM selected Dominus Investment and a consortium of Stonebridge and IBK to award environmental, social and governance (ESG) PE mandates worth 50 billion won.

The Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives (KFCC) named five PE managers to award mandates totaling 250 billion won in May. KFCC picked Q Capital Partners, ST Leaders PE, J& PE, a consortium of LX Investment and IBK Capital and E& Investment to award 50 billion won each.

Last year, KFCC resumed investment in blind-pool funds after it had been restrained from investing in alternative assets for eight years. It selected SkyLake, Eugene Asset Management, InterVest and a consortium of BNW Investment and IBK to award total 180 billion won worth of PE mandates in the first half of 2020. In the second half, KFCC picked IMM Investment, Glenwood PE, Dominus Investment, a consortium of Korea Investment PE and SG PE, Wonik Investment Partners, and EastBridge Partners to award a mandate total 300 billion won.

K-Growth picked a consortium of NH Investment & Securities and Opus PE and KTB PE as its managers for the PE fund category in the first half. It selected Curious Partners and Fine Investment as private debt fund managers. For the rookie league, which was the most competitive, Yuil Technology Investment and a consortium of Fitrin C&D and Melon Partners were selected. (Reporting by Hee-yeon Han)