THE KOREA ECONOMIC DAILY, GLOBAL EDITION

Back in 2018, KKR & Co. tentatively agreed to buy a minority stake in South Korea’s Shinhan Financial Group to build a strategic relationship and to jointly raise up to $5 billion in M&A funds.

Since then, the US private equity firm has not yet taken a stake in the banking group and their pledge to launch the global funds has not yet been fulfilled.

In January, Shinhan announced a plan to raise a combined $200 million from its subsidiaries in two KKR funds of funds (FoFs). It has garnered $150 million for one of the two FoFs so far, with the other $50 million FoF not raised yet, according to financial industry sources.

Further, KKR recently missed out on new shares to be issued by the country’s No. 2 financial holding firm, which decided on Sept. 4 to sell $1 billion worth of new shares to Affinity Equity Partners and Baring Private Equity Asia.

“Their partnership seems to have fizzled out,” said a financial industry source, referring to the fact that KKR was excluded from the recent share deal.