KIC Holds Forum with Korean-American Financial Experts in New York to Discuss Healthcare Private Equity Opportunities

About 20 Public and Private Investment Officials Attend
"Streamlining Inefficient Healthcare Market... A Good Opportunity"

Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) announced that it hosted the 9th "New York Korean Finance Forum" on the morning of the 22nd (local time) at the New York Consulate General, organized by its New York office. The event brought together Korean-American finance professionals and healthcare industry experts in New York to discuss private equity investment opportunities in the U.S. healthcare market. More than 20 investment officials from the government, public investment institutions, securities firms, banks, and insurance companies attended, including the Financial Attach? of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the U.S.

The presentation was delivered by Richard Park, CEO of Ascend Capital Partners. A former physician, he founded City MD in 2010, an urgent care center primarily for minor emergency patients. He grew it into the largest in the industry in the U.S. before selling it to the major pharmacy chain Walgreens in 2022. Based on this experience, he established Ascend Capital in 2019 to expand private equity investments in the healthcare market.

CEO Park stated, “The U.S. healthcare industry has a total public and private consumption size of approximately $4.3 trillion annually, which is about 20% of the total GDP. This is considerably inefficient compared to other major countries where the figure is around 10-12%.” He added, “Due to the U.S. government’s fiscal deficit accumulation, sufficient fiscal input is becoming difficult, so there are good investment opportunities in innovating and improving efficiency in the healthcare market.” He emphasized that improving the cost structure of the healthcare industry is an urgent task. He further noted, "To enhance the efficiency of the healthcare market, it is especially necessary to expand primary care facilities, strengthen preventive care (rather than post-treatment), and streamline Medical Support Organization (MSO) services.”

Lee Kyung-taek, head of KIC’s New York office and organizer of the event, said, “This helped in understanding the issues and future investment opportunities in the U.S. healthcare market,” adding, “We hope domestic institutional investors will explore investment opportunities across various sectors and establish efficient mid- to long-term investment strategies.”

Meanwhile, KIC has overseas offices in global financial hubs including New York and San Francisco in the U.S., London in the U.K., and Singapore. It strives to share overseas investment information and build cooperative systems with domestic public and private financial institutions operating locally.

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