South Korea’s industry group for small and medium enterprises is seeking eight local asset managers, including two rookies, for a 260 billion won (US$199 million) domestic private equity mandate structured as a ten-year blind fund.
The rookie managers will be allotted 20 billion won of the funding, The Korea Federation of SMEs, or KBIZ, says in a request for proposal on August 9.
Winning bidders will be appointed for a five-year term, which may be extended subject to investment performance.
All applicants are required to have experience managing private equity blind funds, and must have at least 100 billion won of private equity portfolios.
Applications are open until August 26 with evaluation and manager selection scheduled by the end of November.
This is the second time KBIZ is outsourcing investments this year. The first was for a 300 billion won foreign bond mandate in March.
Like most Korean asset owners, KBIZ does not often announce tender results publicly.
KBIZ was established in 1962 to safeguard the rights and interests of around 3.55 million small and mid-sized enterprises.