'Optimus Profit Compensation Violation' NH Investment & Securities and Employee Acquitted in First Trial

Optimus Kim Jaehyun Denies 'Collusion'

Seoul Central District Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] NH Investment & Securities Corporation and its employees were acquitted in the first trial on charges of deceiving investors by falsely presenting the Optimus Asset Management (Optimus) fund, which caused a large-scale fund redemption suspension, as if the principal was guaranteed and subsequently compensating for losses.

At 10 a.m. on the 14th, Judge Lee Gwang-yeol of the Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 23 single judge court acquitted NH Investment & Securities Corporation and three employees, including employee A, who were indicted for violating the Capital Markets and Financial Investment Business Act, stating, "There is no evidence of conspiracy with Kim Jaehyun, chairman of Optimus."

The judge stated, "Based solely on the evidence submitted by the prosecution, it cannot be concluded that the defendants demanded Chairman Kim to somehow meet the target yield beyond requesting to adjust operational errors related to the fund not reaching the target yield," and added, "Since the defendants believed the fund invested in public institution accounts receivable, it seems difficult to find a motive for conspiring with Chairman Kim to provide post-benefit."

Previously, employee A and others were prosecuted on charges of selling Optimus products, which do not guarantee principal but were marketed as yielding a fixed 3.5% annual return due to the nature of investing in public institution accounts receivable, and subsequently compensating investors approximately 120 million KRW in profits after the actual target yield was not met. The prosecution viewed that they conspired with Optimus Chairman Kim Jaehyun (52) near the maturity date to artificially raise the poor yield.

NH Investment & Securities denied the charges during the trial, asserting, "Employees never conspired with CEO Kim regarding the yield, and neither the company nor the employees had any motive to commit such crimes," claiming instead that they were victims of the Optimus fund fraud case.

Meanwhile, the Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 23 (Presiding Judge Jo Byung-gu) will hold the first trial verdict on the 22nd for Hana Bank Corporation and its employees, who were indicted on charges including participating in a scheme to cover Optimus fund redemption payments by using other fund money after signing a trust contract despite knowing the abnormal fund operation.

The Optimus incident surfaced in June 2020 when redemptions of private funds managed by Optimus were consecutively suspended. Prosecutors' investigation revealed that contrary to the investment proposal stating the fund would operate by purchasing discounted accounts receivable from public institutions, a stable asset, Optimus purchased private bonds of special purpose companies (SPCs) under their control.

Furthermore, it was revealed that they illegally used the invested funds raised through forged accounts receivable documents for so-called "fund rolling," paying redemption money to prior investors, or illegally investing in real estate development projects and acquiring listed companies.

The total amount of funds raised from investors in this manner reached 1.5952 trillion KRW, with about 510 billion KRW not repaid, causing investor losses. Considering that 3,200 victims were confirmed in the prosecution investigation and that corporate and group investors were also involved, the actual damage is estimated to be even greater.

Regarding related charges, Chairman Kim was sentenced to 40 years in prison by the Supreme Court in July. Co-defendant and Optimus’s second-largest shareholder Lee Dong-yeol (47) was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined 500 million KRW, and director Yoon Seok-ho (45) was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined 300 million KRW.

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