This article was displayed on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove (MM) site at 3:53 p.m. on Jul. 27, 2026.
IGIS Asset Management will acquire the Doosan Tower in Dongdaemun, Jung-gu, Seoul. It comes about a year after a joint acquisition push with Korea Investment & Securities Co. fell through last year.
According to the investment banking (IB) industry on the 27th, IGIS Asset Management will close the Doosan Tower acquisition transaction today. The total transaction size, including incidental costs, is more than 900 billion won.
Doosan Tower is an asset that Mastern Investment Management acquired from Doosan in 2020 for about 800 billion won. With the fund nearing maturity, Mastern moved to sell in Feb. last year, and Korea Investment & Securities Co., IGIS Asset Management, and Kiwoom Asset Management participated in the bidding.
At the time, after Korea Investment & Securities Co. was selected as the preferred bidder, it joined hands with competitor IGIS Asset Management to pursue a joint acquisition, but negotiations broke down after they failed to raise investors by the end of Jul. last year. Since then, Mastern has extended loans of about 560 billion won and the fund maturity, while reviewing the timing for a resale.
IGIS Asset Management then restructured the investment structure, reorganized partners, resumed the acquisition, and closed the transaction by raising more than 900 billion won through project financing. NH Investment & Securities and Hana Bank participated in the funding. Doosan is also said to have invested in the fund.
IGIS Asset Management has been accelerating the acquisition of large assets in downtown Seoul recently. In early this month, it was selected as the preferred bidder in the auction for the Gwanghwamun K-Twin Tower. The expected transaction size is around 1 trillion won. If both transactions are completed, IGIS Asset Management will secure about 2 trillion won worth of core assets in northern Seoul alone in the second half of this year.
Doosan Tower is a mixed-use complex with seven underground floors to 33 above-ground floors and a total floor area of 122,586㎡. At 156.2 meters tall, it is the tallest building in Jung-gu, and it sits in a quadruple station area served by Dongdaemun Station (Lines 1 and 4) and Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station (Lines 2, 4, and 5). Adjacent to Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), it is regarded as a large asset with high scarcity value even in downtown Seoul.
The market is focusing on how to use floors 6–14, which have remained vacant since the duty-free store left. IGIS Asset Management is said to have begun reviewing asset repositioning immediately after the acquisition. In the industry, conversion to a hotel, creation of premium offices, and introduction of lifestyle retail are cited as likely scenarios.
An industry official said, "In the Dongdaemun area, Doosan Tower is virtually the only large asset where a building-level development strategy can be drawn up," and noted, "Given the shortage of hotel supply in downtown Seoul, demand for prime offices, and the reshaping of the retail market, there is significant potential to enhance the asset's value in various ways."