Andie Kang, the man who was responsible for leading the global real estate investing activities of Korea’s $430 billion National Pension Service, is to take a role leading the biggest real estate investment manager in the country.
PERE can reveal that Kang is to become co-chief executive officer at IGIS Asset Management, a Seoul-based company with approximately $6.2 billion of assets under management.
Kang leaves NPS early next month after bringing down the curtain on a decade-long career at the state pension fund and joins IGIS later in the month.
He will take over the role from Dai Young Kim who will leave but remain as the biggest shareholder at the company. IGIS’ other co-chief executive officer is Kab Joo Cho.
His chief remit will be to grow IGIS’ international investment portfolio, something he has ample experience doing thanks to his time at NPS.
In just five years Kang has grown NPS’ international real estate portfolio to about $11 billion in value making it one of the most active Asian institutional investors since the global financial crisis. NPS currently manages about $45 billion in alternative assets, equal to approximately 10 percent of its entire assets.
Kang also grew NPS’ real estate team to 10 investment professionals, including two working from its overseas offices. One of these professionals is expected to be made global head for real estate when he leaves.
At IGIS, Kang will also seek to grow the firm’s exposure to international investors, introducing them to deals in Korea. The firm already has established relationships investing in Korea with firms including CBRE Global Investors and Partners Group.
IGIS has raised $2.7 billion of equity from more than 49 third-party institutional investors across 28 real estate funds, according to company literature obtained by PERE. Within these funds, the firm manages 38 assets with a gross floor area of more than 17 millions square feet. The majority of these assets are offices and retail properties.
According to the literature, IGIS is the second largest asset management company in Korea behind Mirae Asset, which has more than $3 billion of equity within its funds.
The firm has transacted more in Korea than any other asset management firm in the past 24 months, with $1.2 billion of deals, according to Real Capital Analytics.
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