The Korea Federation of SMEs or KBIZ is calling bids for a 110 billion won (US$81.8 million) domestic venture capital mandate, its third outsourced investment thus far this year.
KBIZ will hire as many as nine asset manager for the investment, which will be in the form of a ten-year blind fund, the industry group for small and medium enterprises says in a request for proposal on September 4.
Four of the asset managers will be responsible for investing in companies that are valued at more than 70 billion won. Each of the four will receive 20 billion won of funding.
Another two asset managers will focus on investments in small-sized companies and split 10 billion won of funding equally. KBIZ will also provide 20 billion won to a maximum of three managers to invest in startups.
According to the RFP, senior executives at asset management firms bidding on the tender must not have been warned or punished by financial regulators more than twice over the past five years.
Applications are open until September 27. The winning bidders are expected to be chosen by the end of next month and the blind fund will be formed by October 2025.
KBIZ’s previous two tenders this year were for a 500 billion won domestic fixed income mandate in May, and a 580 billion won private equity mandate last month.
Like most Korean asset owners, the group did not announce the winners of the May tender publicly. Managers for the private equity mandate will be chosen by the end of October.
KBIZ was established in 1962 to safeguard the rights and interests of around 3.55 million Korean SMEs.
