Blackstone Hires Korea Real Estate Lead in Expansion of Seoul Operation

Blackstone has hired Angelo Gordon veteran Chris Kim to lead the private equity giant’s newly created real estate team in South Korea, part of an expansion in the country that includes the opening of a new office in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun business district.

The Manhattan-based firm also promoted former Citigroup Korea boss Yung-Ku Ha to chairman of the South Korean operation after he came aboard last August as executive advisor for the country, Blackstone said Wednesday in a release. Eugene Cook, meanwhile, will continue in his role as managing director leading Blackstone’s South Korean private equity business.

“We are thrilled to expand our team in South Korea at an exciting time of growth for Blackstone in the market,” said Stephen Schwarzman, the chairman, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone. “South Korea is one of the most innovative economies in Asia with a highly sophisticated workforce and domestic corporations that are influencing trends around the world. The extension of the team will significantly help our efforts to continue building strong relationships across the private and public sectors and find compelling investment opportunities.”

The latest moves were presaged last year by reports that Blackstone had hired advisors to assist in re-establishing a presence in the country, as Korean pension funds and asset managers acting as limited partners have pressed their global general partners to establish an on-the-ground presence for closer cooperation.

Team Rounds Into Shape

Kim joins Blackstone after 16 years at US fund manager Angelo Gordon, where he last served as managing director and co-head of Korea real estate.

In that role, the business graduate of Yonsei University was responsible for sourcing and executing real estate transactions in South Korea. At Blackstone, Kim is involved with the day-to-day management of real estate investment activities in the country.

Ha spent over a decade at Citigroup Korea, with stints as chairman and CEO. His other posts have included chairmanships at Mirae Asset Global Investments and the Korea Federation of Banks.

Cook began his Blackstone service in 2014 as a member of the energy private equity business in New York. In 2016 he relocated to the Hong Kong office, the firm’s conduit for South Korean business until the recent Seoul relaunch.

Before joining Blackstone, the Harvard MBA worked on private equity investments at KKR and Carlyle Group and M&A at JP Morgan.

Timely Return

Blackstone is opening its new Seoul office after closing down an earlier presence in the country in 2014.

The company’s real estate investments in South Korea include the Taubman-developed Starfield Hanam, the country’s second-largest shopping mall, and Arc Place, a Gangnam office building leased to global technology players.

KED Global reported that South Korea’s National Pension Service committed $500 million to a life science real estate fund launched by Blackstone in 2020. The fund aims to raise $12 billion and is targeting core-plus life science properties in North America, the news website said, citing investment banking sources.

A surge in South Korean deals helped lift investment in Asia Pacific commercial real estate to a record high in 2021, according to Real Capital Analytics. The red-hot market and a shortage of supply helped push the vacancy rate in Seoul’s Grade A office sector to its lowest level since 2010 in the first quarter of this year, Colliers reported.