Private Equity Takes Seoul

Why Privcap has launched a Korean-language publication about the asset class

As private equity has globalized, it has naturally grown in non-English speaking markets. Those markets hunger for information about how the asset class functions, what the best practices are, and what the most seasoned investors see as the best opportunities.

Privcap offers a treasure trove of thought-leadership on these topics, and it’s all in English, which makes it accessible to the bulk of market participants. And yet, we think that offering translated versions of our content makes it that much more accessible and, frankly, enjoyable, for a larger number of people.

So we’re launching our first foreign-language publication—in Korean. It’s called Trends in Private Capital, or사모 자본 트랜드.

Why Korean, you ask?

We very well may launch editions in Chinese, Spanish and other major languages. But changes are afoot in South Korea right now that make it a particularly interesting market for private capital.

“Korean institutions are rapidly becoming a significant factor in international alternative investments,” says Kelly DePonte, a managing director at Probitas Partners, one of the launch partners to TIPC. “They are actively seeking both market intelligence and information on international best practices in order to keep expanding intelligently.”

Probitas counts some 35 different limited partner organizations in Korea that are initiating or expanding allocations to private capital. They are looking for global best practices to build out portfolios and are sharing information with each other. They are wary of the scores of Western asset gatherers knocking on their doors.

Some Korean institutional investors, such as the $85 billion Korean Investment Corp., are already big contributors of direct and indirect investment capital around the world. Seoul is becoming a must-visit destination for IR professionals and fundraising hopefuls.

Our debut issue of TIPC features:

• • An interview with Kerogen Capital’s Jason Chang about the global energy opportunity
• • Probitas’ Kelly DePonte on the right way to build out a PE allocation
• • Alcentra’s David Forbes-Nixon on the European debt opportunity
• • A wide-ranging interview with Bain Capital’s Steve Pagliuca
• • Harvard’s Josh Lerner on the performance of emerging markets PE
• • Exclusive Preqin data

. . . and much more

US pension funds, the current capital bedrock of global private equity, have had more than three decades to figure out (painfully, in some cases) the right and wrong ways to build a private capital allocation.

In markets like South Korea, institutional investors are initiating significant private capital programs more quickly and with the benefit of those three decades of lessons from the West. Trends in Private Capital is designed to accelerate this knowledge sharing.