Korea International Investment Fund

Date Title Author
2010.09.10

Korea's Biggest Investor to Find Its Voice to Improve Corporate Governance
National Pension Service, South Korea’s biggest investor, said its days as a passive investor are coming to an end and that it will begin raising its voice to improve corporate governance and the value of its shareholdings....

Saeromi Shin,
Bloomberg News
2010.8.30

Samsung's Lee Shifts Strategy in Challenge to Apple
About an hour south of Seoul, bulldozers are demolishing the last vacant factories at Samsung Electronics Co.’s Suwon campus, erasing signs that South Korea’s most valuable public company once made its headquarters in a smoke-fuming...

Yoolim Lee,
Bloomberg News

2010.05.27

Mobius says South Korean Policies May Change North
South Korean President Lee Myung Bak’s measures against North Korea may accelerate change and help to open up the communist country “in the long run,” according to Mark Mobius.The probability of war between the nations is "quite low" even as tensions have escalated...

Seyoon Kim,
Saeromi Shin,
Bloomberg News
2010.3.30 Local Brokerage Houses Embrace Global Business Culture
It seems that the spring has come to the financial market first. Cho In-kang, the director general of the Financial Services Commission's Capital Markets Bureau, looked pleased when he came to the podium for a press briefing on March 24. As a man whose job is to take care of South ...

Cho, Jin-seo,
Korea Times

2009.12.10 Korea Beating Japan as Won Buoys Nation Led by Hyundai
Yoon Sun Duk says people called him “crazy” when he expanded his factory just as the financial crisis hit South Korea. His decision helps explain why the nation is at the forefront of the global recovery.  "We told ourselves there will be a tsunami of orders once the global recession is ....
Seyoon Kim,
Bloomberg News
2008.01.24 Choppy Seas in Overseas Markets
European markets swooned amid worries that the region's central banks wouldn't follow the Federal Reserve's lead. A weak start on Wall Street also hurt. ....

A Wall Street Journal News Roundup

2008.01.23 Asia's Relief Rally Masks Lasting Worry Over a U.S. Pullback
Asian stocks rallied Wednesday, following the U.S. Federal Reserve's unexpected rate cut. But the effervescent trading session didn't give much joy to large institutional investors, which worry the U.S. consumer is going to stay spooked by a possible recession and cut back ....
Laura Santini,
James T. Areddy,
Yuka Hayashi,
The Wall Street Journal
2007.07.18 Hub Plan Becomes Hollow Slogan
The government unveiled a series of ambitious measures to turn the country into an international financial center over the past few years but the hub dream has become a hollow slogan, many international analysts say. ....
Lee Hyo-sik,
Korea Times
2007.06.19 Korea Stock Rally Shows A Different Picture
For years, investors in the South Korean stock market looked at shares of its biggest companies, such as Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, to get a feel for the whole.....
Evan Ramstad,
The Wall Street Journal
2007.06.13 Power Shifts Toward Financial Industry
Financial and manufacturing industries are the two engines powering a country's economic growth. In South Korea, the financial sector has been viewed as a supplementary engine for the manufacturing industry. From textile to shipbuilding and tech industries, manufacturing firms have been the primary driver of the country's growth. ....
Yoon Ja-young,
Korea Times
2007.04.30 For Korea, Free Trade and Fatter Multiples
Among the myriad rivalries that energize and bedevil Asia is the one between Japan and South Korea, which go head-to-head in global export markets. The perception for years was that Korea ate Japan's lunch, but lately Korean exporters have been tormented by the high won. Japan...
Leslie P. Norton,
Barron's
2007.03.25 Hyundai Motor Risks Crashing as Chairman Chung Faces Jail Time
The embezzlement trial of Chung Mong Koo, chairman of Hyundai Motor Co., prolonged the carmaker's worst strike, slowed construction of factories and delayed. ....
Seonjin Cha,
Bloomberg News
2006.11.16 Lone Star's Short Faces Extradition to South Korea
Lone Star Funds co-founder Ellis Short faces an extradition request by South Korean prosecutors after a Seoul court issued a warrant seeking his detention over the buyout firm's management of the nation's fifth-largest bank.....
Sangim Han and William Sim,
Bloomberg News
2006.11.02 Investors fidgety over Lone Star flap
Financial industry representatives here on Wall Street voiced their concern yesterday over the chilling effects a prosecution investigation into Lone Star Funds executives might have on Korea as an investment target. ....
Nam Jeong-ho, Joongang Daily
2006.08.11 Business Has No Nationalism
A foreign businessman builds a firm in Korea that employs thousands people. A Korean businessman builds a factory in China also employing thousands. Which one is making the biggest contribution to the Korean economy....
Yoon Ja-young,
Korea Times
2006.05.04 Tax Probe Won’t Affect FDI
A series of tax probes of foreign companies and government taking measures to levy tax on foreign capital, some have related them with anti-foreign sentiment and showed concern that it may drive out foreign direct investment (FDI). ....
Yoon Ja-young,
Korea TImes
2006.04.20 Bribery Probe May Halt Hyundai Motor's Drive to Top 5
A bribery scandal hanging over Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong Koo and his son, Kia Motors Corp. President Chung Eui Sun, is hindering their plans to become one of the world's top five automakers by 2010.....
Heejin Koo, Bloomberg News
2006.02.07 Korean Won Rally May Run Longer As Investors Pile In
South Korean officials declare the country's currency is overvalued, and some analysts are predicting an end to the won's sharp ascent. But a number of investors in Korea and around the world are taking the contrarian view.....
Laura Santini,
The Wall Street Journal
2006.01.23 Samsung Electronics' P/E Ratio Gets a Lift From Korean Investors
Samsung Electronics is likely to outstrip International Business Machines this year as the world's largest technology company by revenue.....
Evan Ramstad,
The Wall Street Journal
2005.11.28 The Korea Rally Has Legs
For years, Korean stocks have labored under the "Korea discount," reflecting fear that North Korea would launch a nuclear strike against the South and the reality that Corporate Korea treated minority shareholders shabbily.....
Leslie P. Norton, Barron's
2005.10.04 The Only Way is Up
It is one of those moments when you nearly drop your coffee cup. The moment takes place in the Yoido Offices of Daewoo Securities. Kim Hee Joo, who is in charge of marketing equity installment funds to nation's other Mr and Mrs Kims, offers his own personal forecast of the Kospi. . .
Steven Irvine, FinanceAsia Magazine
2005.06.12 SK Corp. Chairman is Sentenced to Five Years Probation
In ruling Friday to suspend the three-year sentence of the head of South Korea's largest oil refiner for a $1.2 billion accounting fraud, Korea's highest court lost an opportunity to demonstrate that authorities are taking seriously calls to improve management and corporate governance standards at Korea's top companies, foreign investors and Korean activists say....
Laura Santini,
The Wall Street Journal
2005.05.08 DPM Han conducts IR Activities in New York on May 8-10, 2005
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economy Han Duck-soo led an investor road show in New York from May 8 to 10, 2005 which included delivering a speech to and engaging in interaction with members of the Council on Foreign Relations, visits to credit rating agencies...
 
2005.05.02 SK Corp. Chairman is Sentenced to Five Years Probation
In ruling Friday to suspend the three-year sentence of the head of South Korea's largest oil refiner for a $1.2 billion accounting fraud, Korea's highest court lost an opportunity to demonstrate that authorities are taking seriously calls to improve management and corporate governance...
Laura Santini,
The Wall Street Journal
2005.05.02 The Next Toyota?
Robert Cosmai, The Chief OF Hyundai Motor America, can hardly wait for May 20 to arrive.
That's the date of the official opening of Hyundai's Montgomery, Ala., plant -- the ambitious South Korean car maker's first production facility in the States and the key beachhead in the next...
Leslie P. Norton,
Barron's
2003.03.10 Over to You, MSCI
How does one classify an emerging market? As a rule of thumb many people classify an emerging market as a country where you don’t think twice about taking a taxi from the airport. However, such an approach is unlikely to impress Morgan Stanley Capital International – better known...
Steven Irvine,
FinanceAsia Magazine