Homeplus's application for corporate rehabilitation procedures put the National Pension Service at risk of losing nearly 1 trillion won of national retirement funds, leading it to establish a task force (TF) to proactively prepare measures internally and to hire a large law firm.
On the 24th, a National Pension Service fund management office official noted, “When a major incident occurs related to the National Pension Service, we have formed a TF and discussed measures,” and added, “We are responding to the current Homeplus issue in the same way (forming a TF).
The National Pension Service invested over 600 billion won when MBK Partners acquired Homeplus in 2015. Seowon, the chief investment officer of the National Pension Service, attended a meeting of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee on the 18th of this month and explained, “We invested a total of 612.1 billion won, which includes 58.26 billion won in redeemable convertible preferred shares (RCPS) and 29.5 billion won in common stock.”
Subsequently, the National Pension Service recovered 313.1 billion won, including 94.2 billion won in principal and 218.9 billion won in profit from the RCPS. The interest rate at the time of the contract with MBK was 9%. The chief investment officer stated, “The rate stepped up to 13% after a certain period elapsed,” and added, “Including that, the fair value evaluation suggests that we should receive about 900 billion won.”
Depending on whether the loss is confirmed, the National Pension Service could end up losing nearly 1 trillion won of national retirement funds. This is why the National Pension Service has internally formed a TF to discuss specific response measures and has begun the process of hiring a large law firm to seek legal advice. A National Pension Service official said, “There is nothing concretely determined regarding future response timelines.”