'Optimus Bankruptcy Causing Large-Scale Redemption Suspension Crisis'

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] Optimus Asset Management (Optimus), which caused a large-scale fund redemption suspension incident, has finally gone bankrupt.

According to the court on the 30th, the Seoul Bankruptcy Court Rehabilitation Division 14 (Chief Judge Kim Donggyu) declared bankruptcy on Optimus yesterday morning. Optimus filed for bankruptcy at the court at the end of June. According to the liquidator's announcement, the amount of damages claims against Optimus reached about 373.5 billion KRW. The court viewed that the cause of bankruptcy was clear, considering that the debts far exceeded the assets worth several billion KRW.

The bankruptcy trustee is the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation, and 13 creditors including NH Investment & Securities, Korea Investment & Securities, and Recovery Asset Management can file claims at the Seoul Bankruptcy Court General Civil Affairs Office by the 26th of next month. The creditors' meeting will be held at 4 p.m. on October 25th in Courtroom 1 of the 3rd Annex of the Seoul Bankruptcy Court. The resolutions include 'whether to continue business operations' and 'designation of storage location for high-value items.'

The Optimus incident surfaced in June 2020 when the redemption of private equity funds managed by Optimus was repeatedly suspended. Prosecutors' investigation revealed that contrary to the investment proposal stating that the fund would be operated by purchasing discounted public institution-issued accounts receivable, a stable asset, Optimus purchased private bonds of special purpose companies (SPCs) under their control. They illegally used the invested funds, which were raised through forgery of accounts receivable documents and other methods, to pay redemption money to prior investors in a so-called 'fund rollover' scheme or illegally invested in real estate development projects and acquisition of listed companies.

The total amount of funds raised from investors in this manner reached 1.5952 trillion KRW, of which about 510 billion KRW was not repaid, causing investor losses. Considering that the number of victims confirmed by the prosecution investigation reached 3,200 and that there are corporate and organizational investors, the actual scale of damage is estimated to be even larger.

Regarding related charges, Kim Jaehyun, CEO of Optimus (52), was sentenced to 40 years in prison by the Supreme Court last month. Lee Dongyeol (47), the second-largest shareholder of Optimus who was indicted together, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined 500 million KRW, and Director Yoon Seokho (45) was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined 300 million KRW, respectively.

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