THE KOREA ECONOMIC DAILY, GLOBAL EDITION

Daishin Securities Co. has called off a plan to sell its headquarters building in a central business district in downtown Seoul to NH-Amundi Asset Management Co. for 660 billion won ($497 million) after the latter failed to recruit investors for its acquisition fund.

This was the South Korean major securities firm’s second attempt to sell its main office building in the capital city after its previous deal with IGIS Asset Management Co. collapsed due to a difference in the sale prices in August last year.

Daishin Securities will start looking for a new buyer of the building, an official from the securities firm said on Thursday.

Located in a main financial district in Jung-gu, Seoul, the headquarters building, called Daishin 343, has 26 floors above the ground and seven underground with a floor area of 54,369 square meters.

In March, Daishin Securities signed a memorandum of understanding to sell the building to NH-Amundi Asset Management for 660 billion won in what would be the most expensive per-unit official building deal since the sale of SK Seorin Building in 2021.

Under the sale term, NH-Amundi planned to bring in outside investors to chip in an acquisition fund for the deal, but the asset manager was said to have struggled to recruit investors in a prolonger high interest rate environment, delaying the deal’s closing, said sources.

At the same time, other prime buildings in central Seoul have been put up for sale in recent months, heating up competition in the commercial real estate market in the capital city.

The Government of Singapore Investment Corp. (GIC)-owned Seoul Finance Center, KDB Life Tower and Noon Square were among those hot properties.

However, Daishin Securities is not in a hurry to sell the building again after it has already raised enough funds to beef up its equity capital to meet the conditions of being a comprehensive financial investment business entity in Korea.

It sold redeemable convertible preference shares (RCPS) in recent months to lift capital to over 3 trillion won.

In Korea, a financial institution with a capital of more than 3 trillion won is eligible to be a comprehensive financial investment firm, which can offer corporate financing and investment banking services, such as prime brokerage businesses for hedge fund managers.

Daishin Securities applied earlier this year to become such an entity to spur its investment banking and corporate finance businesses.

Its equity capital stood at 3.1 trillion won as of the end of the first half of this year.

Write to Byeong-Hwa Ryu at hwahwa@hankyung.com
Sookyung Seo edited this article.