Cho Gap-joo, Director General for new business promotion and the No. 2 shareholder of IGIS Asset Management, will return as CEO after five years. As the sale of management control has been delayed and concerns have grown among fund limited partners (LPs), the company said the personnel move is intended to restore trust with them.
According to the investment banking (IB) industry on the 27th, IGIS Asset Management plans to appoint Cho as CEO at a board meeting on the 28th.
Cho, the Director General, is the No. 2 shareholder with about 12% equity in IGIS Asset Management through personal and family companies. From 2014 to 2021, Cho served as CEO of IGIS Asset Management for seven years and later took office as board chair, but resigned and halted external activities in 2023 after so-called "pursuit of private interest" controversy arose during a Financial Supervisory Service inspection.
An IGIS Asset Management official said, "As the sale of management control has been delayed longer than initially expected and noise has emerged, Cho intends to take responsibility and return as CEO to restore relations with LPs."
However, the company drew a line that Cho's return to management does not mean the transfer of management control with Hillhouse Investment Management Ltd. has gone off track.
Hillhouse proposed 1.1 trillion won as the acquisition price for IGIS Asset Management at the end of last year and was selected as the preferred bidder. However, the signing of the main contract (SPA) has not taken place to date. As a result, in the industry, possibilities have been raised that the transaction with Hillhouse could fall through and that Taekwang Group (which proposed 1.05 trillion won), the second-ranked bidder at the time of the main bid, could resume its push to acquire the company.