John Lee, Leader of Donghak Ants, Faces 'Illegal Investment' Allegations... "Fully Explained"
John Lee, CEO of Meritz Asset Management, is delivering the keynote speech at the 2020 Gold Age Forum held on July 9, 2020, at the Banking Hall in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@
View original image[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] Amid allegations that John Lee, CEO of Meritz Asset Management, made illegal investments in a friend's company under his wife's name, the CEO's side has denied the allegations.
On the 18th, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) conducted an on-site inspection of Meritz Asset Management from the 23rd of last month to the 7th of this month and is currently reviewing the materials. It is known that the FSS launched the inspection after receiving a tip-off questioning whether Meritz Asset Management violated the Capital Markets Act by investing in a fund of a company where the CEO's wife is a shareholder.
CEO John Lee invested about 6% of shares in P Company, a real estate-related online peer-to-peer (P2P) investment platform established by an acquaintance in 2016, under his wife's name. Two years later, in 2018, Meritz Asset Management set up the "Meritz Marketplace Lending Specialized Private Investment Trust" fund and invested the entire 6 billion KRW fund amount into P Company's real estate P2P products.
The FSS is reportedly focusing on whether the investment of the company's fund into products of a company operated by the CEO's acquaintance and where the CEO's spouse is a shareholder constitutes a conflict of interest.
CEO John Lee acknowledged the FSS investigation but denied the related allegations. Regarding the wife's name-lending investment suspicion and conflict of interest, John Lee stated that he has sufficiently explained the matter to the supervisory authorities.
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Regarding the suspicion of pursuing private interests, he emphasized that for such allegations to hold, the fund would have to incur losses, but since it generated an annual return of about 12%, there was no default.
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