Daishin Securities shelves main office building sale to NH-Amundi

Daishin Securities Co. has called off a plan to sell its headquarters building in a central business district of 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 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 in August last year due to differences over the sale price.

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

Located in the financial district of Jung-gu, Seoul, the building, dubbed Daishin 343, has 26 aboveground floors and seven below ground, with a floor area of 54,369 square meters.

In March, Daishin Securities signed an MOU 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 the SK Seorin Building in 2021.

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

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

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

Daishin Securities is not in a hurry to sell the building again, however. 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 its capital to over 3 trillion won.

In Korea, a financial institution with 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 June this year. 

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