Mirae Assets logs 150% return from German biotech startup exit

Mirae Asset Daewoo Co. Ltd. has earned a 150% return on a $15 million investment in German biotechnology firm BioNTech SE in nine months, securing $22 million in net proceeds from the divestment.

It has disposed of its stake in the Nasdaq-listed startup soon after the lockup period expired early this month, the South Korean brokerage firm said on April 16.

Mirae Asset had put $15 million in the company in July 2019, three months before the German startup went public on Nasdaq, in co-investment with a startup fund it had formed with South Korea’s top internet portal company Naver in June 2018.

The divestment marked the first exit for the joint fund managed by Mirae Asset Capital Co. Ltd.

Shares of BioNTech, a developer of mRNA-based vaccine candidates, rallied in March after it announced a Covid-19 vaccine development in partnerships with Pfizer Inc. and China’s Fosun Pharmaceuticals.

It plans to begin human testing of the Covid-19 vaccine later this month.

Meanwhile, Mirae Asset is in talks to exit real estate investments in Cologne and Chicago, after selling the Taunusanlage 8 (T8) building in Frankfurt for 280 million euros in 2019.

In 2018, Mirae Asset Daewoo made a joint acquisition with SK Securities Co. Ltd. of an office building in Cologne, which has been leased to a department of the German federal government, for an undisclosed sum.

eigen@hankyung.com