Heungkuk Life Insurance Files Complaint Against Five Including Largest Shareholder of Aegis Asset Management and Sale Lead Manager

Obstruction of Fair Bidding and Fraudulent Unfair Trading Alleged
Heungkuk Life Insurance: "Secret Progressive Deal Offered to Hillhouse Investment"
"An Act That Undermines the Fairness and Reliability of the Capital Market"

Heungkuk Life Insurance has filed a police complaint against five individuals in connection with its dissatisfaction over Aegis Asset Management being selected as the preferred bidder.

On December 11, Heungkuk Life Insurance announced that it had reported five people to the police, including Mr. Son, the largest shareholder of Aegis Asset Management, his daughter Ms. Kim, who is also the representative shareholder, and Mr. Kim, the head of the Korean Investment Banking (IB) division at Morgan Stanley, which acted as the joint lead manager of the sale. The complaint alleges obstruction of fair bidding and fraudulent unfair trading (in violation of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act).

Gwanghwamun Heungkuk Life Insurance Building. Heungkuk Life Insurance

In its complaint, Heungkuk Life Insurance stated that the accused conspired to maximize the bid price through a so-called "progressive deal" (competitive bidding) process, while outwardly pretending not to proceed in this manner.

On November 11, during the main bidding for the sale of Aegis Asset Management, Heungkuk Life Insurance submitted the highest bid of 1.05 trillion won. Hillhouse Investment and Hanwha Life Insurance each submitted bids in the mid-900 billion won range. A Heungkuk Life Insurance representative claimed, "Morgan Stanley conveyed Heungkuk Life Insurance's bid price to Hillhouse, a Chinese private equity fund, and suggested that if they submitted a higher price, they would be selected as the preferred bidder. As a result, Hillhouse submitted a new bid of 1.1 trillion won and was chosen as the preferred bidder."

Heungkuk Life Insurance argued, "Ultimately, the fairness that should have been upheld in price formation and competition methods was destroyed. Heungkuk Life Insurance was deprived of the fair status it was entitled to in this bidding process and lost the legitimate opportunity to be selected as the preferred bidder."

Heungkuk Life Insurance further stated, "This clearly constitutes an act of bid obstruction that seriously undermined the fairness of this bidding process through deception or other means. It is a fraudulent and unfair trading act that undermines the fairness and reliability of the capital market and disrupts the order of the financial market."

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