'Redemption Halted' Optimus Fund... Investment Money Placed in Loan Sharking by Lending Company

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji-hwan Park] An asset management company that advertised investment in public institution accounts receivable to attract investment funds was found to have largely included privately placed bonds issued by a lending company. Financial authorities plan to investigate the reasons for the suspension of redemptions of the fund as well as suspicions of forgery and falsification in the asset inclusion details.

According to the financial investment industry on the 21st, Optimus Asset Management, which faced a fund redemption suspension crisis last week, is known to have held privately placed bonds issued by Lending Company A as a major asset from the early issuance of the problematic Optimus Creator Fund.

Since last year until recently, this fund, which was sequentially established 54 times, is a professional private equity fund product that attracted investors by introducing that more than 95% of the included assets are public institution accounts receivable. It was advertised as a product pursuing an annual yield of around 3% with a maturity of 6 months. It is said to have attracted much attention from investors as the interest rate is higher than bank interest rates and the investment destination was also perceived as stable.

However, contrary to the advertisement, it was found that the fund had included privately placed bonds and other bonds issued by Lending Company A, which is unrelated to public institution accounts receivable, as major assets. Considering that the fund statement was recorded as public institution accounts receivable, there is a strong possibility of intentional forgery and falsification.

Even the fund distributors carefully compared related documents informing the asset inclusion details but stated that they realized the documents were forged belatedly. The asset management company reportedly admitted in a countermeasure meeting with the distributors that "the law firm in charge of the deal sourcing process forged the bonds." The supervisory authorities immediately conducted an on-site investigation of the asset management company on the 19th.

In the industry, since the structure of other fund products managed by Optimus is similar, it is expected that redemptions of other funds with remaining maturities will also be suspended.

According to the Korea Financial Investment Association, as of the end of April, the total fund balance set by Optimus Asset Management was 556.5 billion KRW. The redemption deferral amounts for the suspended 'Optimus Creator Bond Specialized Private Investment Trust No. 25 and 26' are 21.7 billion KRW by NH Investment & Securities and 16.7 billion KRW by Korea Investment & Securities, respectively.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.