News
Pulmuone’s plan to raise a 400 billion won global fund in affiliation with National Pension Service (NPS) is moving forward at a rapid pace. Its strategy to explore overseas markets through M&A seems to gain traction.
According to the investment banking industry on February 3, the nation’s leading environment-friendly food company has recently submitted a proposal to NPS to form a Corporate Partnership Private Equity Fund (PEF).
This proposal is that each of Pulmuone and NPS shall pay 200 billion won for M&A deals with foreign companies in the US and China.
NPS is expected to have an investment committee meeting to approve the proposal as early as this week. In this regard, Pulmuone signed a memorandum of understanding with NPS in September last year.
Corporate Partnership is a way of arranging one-to-one matching joint funds where NPS participates as a financial investor for domestic firms’ overseas M&A deals.
The Pulmuone project is particularly meaningful because it is the first case that NPS holds hands with mid-sized companies, not with large companies, to form such kind of a fund. The fund will be managed by Korea Bio-technology Investment (KBIC), one of Pulmuone’s affiliates, and Global and Associates (G&A), a PEF management company.
Pulmuone has sought for opportunities to expand its business to the US and China for years. Now it is more actively moving forward to take over local companies in these markets. It is said that Pulmuone is already in the process of reviewing alternatives.