NPS boosts private debt and venture capital investment in Q1

The National Pension Service (NPS) has beefed up investments in private debt and venture capital funds by adding Antares Capital Advisers and Insight Partners to its roster of overseas alternative investment managers in the first quarter.

Including the two US companies, NPS increased the pool of its outside overseas alternative investment firms by three during the January-March period, according to its recent announcement.

Select Equity Group was chosen as its fifth single-manager hedge fund house.

It did not disclose the allocation amount for the three newly-added investment companies.

Chicago-based Antares Capital provide loans to US middle-market and private equity-backed companies, with over $27 billion under management. It was one of the investment houses with which NPS chief investment officer Hyo-joon Ahn had meetings during his business trip to New York in mid-February.

In 2018, Antares Capital raised capital from South Korean pension funds, including the Public Officials Benefit Association and the Police Mutual Aid Association for a private debt fund.

New York-based Insight Partners, with over $30 billion under management, focuses on growth-stage software companies as a private equity and venture capital firm.

Its portfolio companies include online social networking platform Twitter Inc. and Germany’s food delivery service provider Delivery Hero, in which it invested in 2009 and 2014 respectively. It also had invested in South Korean ecommerce platform TMON Inc.

In total, the $600 billion pension scheme has put 63.3 trillion won ($52 billion), or 9.1% of its total assets, into overseas alternatives through 150 global investment companies as of the end of March.

The global investment managers break down to 60 private equity/debt and venture capital firms; seven hedge fund managers; 49 real estate investors; and 34 infrastructure management companies.

Write to Jung-hwan Hwang at jung@hankyung.com