[January 17, 2013] Daesung Private Equity, Inc. (Presidents Younghoon Kim and Haksu Suh) announced on January 17, 2013 that it has created the IBK-Daesung Cultural Content Small Giant Investment Fund worth KRW 20 billion together with the Korea Fund of Funds (KFoF) and the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK).

The investment fund has a 20 billion won capital pool, financed by the fund managing company, Daesung Private Equity (2 billion won, 10% stake), and limited liability partners such as KFoF (10.8 billion won, 54%) and IBK (7.2 billion won, 36%). The fund has a fixed life of five years. 

The IBK-Daesung investment fund is part of the joint initiative by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and IBK to promote promising small to midsize companies in the cultural content sector in Korea. 

The fund is intended to promote competitive Korean companies globally by making investments in promising small to midsize cultural content producers or distributors in six focus areas -- TV programs, movies, concert and music, animation and character design, game and digital content. Moreover, it plans to contribute to the spread of the Korean pop culture craze by creating well-balanced investment portfolios and enhancing Korea’s competitiveness across the culture segment. 

Keun-Jin Park, lead fund manager and managing director of the investment fund, said “Daesung Private Equity’s systematic management of portfolio companies is expected to generate synergy effects with various support programs by the government and IBK. A higher return from cultural content investment funds will encourage future investments in cultural content.” 

Daesung Private Equity, a subsidiary of Daesung Group, has a total of 11 funds including IBK- Daesung Cultural Content Small Giant Investment Fund. Daesung Private Equity has made extensive investments in startups and the cultural content segment over the past 26 years. Daesung Private Equity created Daesung CT Investment Fund worth 20 billion won and TV Chosun-Daesung Win-Win Fund worth 42 billion won in 2011, which invested in competitive content such as movies titled Gwanghae: The Man Who Became King and War on Crime: The Golden Age of the Bad Guys. The company created an entertainment investment fund ‘BiNEXT CT III’ in 2008 to invest in popular TV series such as Secret Garden and Athena: Goddess of War. Daesung Private Equity has been a leading investor in the cultural content segment including movies, games, music and drama with a series of investment funds – a digital music source investment fund worth 7.2 billion won, a drama investment fund worth 16 billion won, and game fund worth 17 billion won in 2007.