Global investment bank Morgan Stanley is bringing on Kim Seok-bong, a vice president at Citigroup Global Markets Securities who has closed a string of marquee deals in South Korea’s capital markets, to lead its South Korea investment banking division. Kim will assume the role of chairman and co-head of Korea Investment Banking starting in December, working alongside current head Kim Se-won.<\/p>\n
According to investment banking industry sources on the 3rd, Kim’s official title will be chairman and co-head of Korea Investment Banking. The South Korean IB organization, which has operated under a single-head structure since former Morgan Stanley Korea country head Cho Sang-wook resigned in May of last year, will now transition to a co-head arrangement with this hire.<\/p>\n
Kim is regarded as a “big deal maker” who led a series of landmark transactions across domestic and international capital markets during his tenure at Citigroup Global Markets Securities. His most recent achievement is SK Hynix’s (000660.KS) American Depositary Receipt issuance. The deal, valued at approximately 40 trillion won (approximately $29.5 billion), set a record as the largest-ever U.S. Nasdaq listing by a foreign company, with Citigroup Global Markets Securities serving as an underwriter.<\/p>\n
His track record is equally notable in the IPO space. He was involved in LG Energy Solution’s listing\u2014the largest IPO in South Korean stock market history\u2014as well as other major listings including KakaoBank and SK Biopharmaceuticals. In M&A advisory, his deal sheet includes EQT’s acquisition of Douzone Bizon, CEO Huh Jae-myung’s sale of Iljin Materials, Lotte Group’s divestitures of Lotte Card and Lotte Non-Life Insurance, and SK Hynix’s acquisition of Intel’s NAND flash memory business.<\/p>\n
Kim’s academic credentials are solid. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Yonsei University, an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a Ph.D. in business administration from Korea University.<\/p>\n
Morgan Stanley’s South Korea IB division entered a generational transition after Cho, who had led the organization for more than 13 years, stepped down. Kim Se-won, a former UBS executive, was appointed as the new head and has been running the organization solo, but the addition of Kim Seok-bong now establishes a two-person leadership structure.<\/p>\n
The hire is widely interpreted as a strategic move by Morgan Stanley to restore its presence in the South Korean IB market. In the SK Hynix ADR issuance completed last month, Morgan Stanley was notably absent from the underwriter list. The deal’s underwriters were Citigroup Global Markets Securities, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Bank of America. Given that Kim was the executive who spearheaded that very transaction from the Citigroup side, Morgan Stanley’s move is seen as an effort to poach key talent from a competitor to elevate its market standing.<\/p>\n
That said, Morgan Stanley has built meaningful advisory credentials in the South Korean market this year. The firm has maintained its deal pipeline by advising on Han & Company’s sale of SK Shipping’s VLCC business, KKR’s acquisition of Samsung SDS convertible bonds, and Carlyle’s acquisition of Chungho Nais. With Kim’s addition, expectations are rising that the firm’s competitiveness in winning large-scale mandates will strengthen further.<\/p>\n
Industry observers believe this hire goes beyond a simple personnel move and could have significant ripple effects on the competitive landscape of the South Korean IB market. Kim’s large-deal experience and network built at Citigroup Global Markets Securities can be immediately deployed to expand Morgan Stanley’s South Korea business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global investment bank Morgan Stanley is bringing on Kim Seok-bong, a vice president at Citigroup Global Markets Securities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[456],"tags":[845,846,72103,58277,65839,72104,72105,72102,72101,733,3535,275],"class_list":["post-142019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bank-of-korea","tag-bank-of-korea","tag-bok","tag-cho-sang-wook","tag-citigroup-global-markets-securities","tag-douzone-bizon","tag-eqt","tag-iljin-materials","tag-kim-se-won","tag-kim-seok-bong","tag-lg-energy-solution","tag-morgan-stanley","tag-sk-hynix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}