Korea’s sovereign wealth fund is willing to team up with local brokerages and asset management firms to invest in overseas infrastructure projects, its chief said Wednesday.

The Korea Investment Corp., which manages about $90-billion assets, has rarely cooperated with local investment firms before.


“As overseas construction projects are evolving to become large investment projects, customized financial support is all the more necessary now,” Eun Sung-soo, CEO of KIC, said in a meeting with heads of local brokerages and asset management firms in Seoul.

“While provision of capital for large projects in Iran has become significant, it is not easy to do so with the help of the Korea Development Bank or Export-Import Bank of Korea alone. I came here to ask for your participation,” he said.

His comments came after Korean President Park Geun-hye reached provisional deals in construction and energy worth $45.6 billion with her Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani during a summit earlier this month.

Eun also said that the KIC plans to pursue joint investments with “a smaller” local pension fund, seemingly excluding the largest National Pension Service.

This year, the KIC will double the amount of its asset managed by local investment firms from the meager 2 percent currently, he said.

“We will also expand the proportion of advisory services from local accounting firms and law firms,” he said.

By law, the KIC is obliged to invest in foreign assets only. The investment portfolio is mostly comprised of equities and fixed income, while alternative investments in hedge funds, private equity and real estate accounts for about 12.4 percent.

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)