Korea Investment PE expands investment territory with mega-deal close, fundraising push

Korea Investment Private Equity has cemented its standing in the domestic private equity market this year, leveraging strong fundraising capabilities and sophisticated deal-structuring skills.

The firm closed a trillion-won-scale mega-deal in SK Group's energy infrastructure assets, pushing its cumulative assets under management past 6 trillion won ($4.48 billion). It is now pressing ahead on multiple fronts — building an independent physical infrastructure investment platform worth 1 trillion won, raising a critical minerals supply chain policy fund alongside linked project funds, and forming a special situations hybrid fund — in a broad push to expand its alternative investment footprint.

Korea Investment PE was the standout name behind this year's largest domestic M&A transaction. The firm successfully closed the acquisition of minority stakes in SK Multi Utility — known as SK MU — and Ulsan GPS in late June, as part of SK Group's broader asset-optimization drive. The deal, totaling 1.6 trillion won, was a welcome splash of activity in an otherwise deal-starved market.

The transaction was structured as a consortium with Stick Alternative Asset Management. Korea Investment PE and its partner each acquired a 49 percent stake in SK MU, a combined heat and power subsidiary of SK Chemicals, and a 49 percent stake in Ulsan GPS, a combined-cycle power subsidiary of SK GAS.

The consortium beat out fierce competition in the final bidding round and closed the deal within five months of being named the preferred bidder in January — a pace that underscored the firm's execution speed. A key driver of that swift close was the financial firepower of the broader Korea Investment group, with Korea Investment & Securities providing robust acquisition financing that strengthened the overall transaction.

Industry observers say the transaction gave Korea Investment PE a commanding position in the high-growth energy and AI infrastructure market. Having previously closed trillion-won deals involving SK On and Hanwha Energy, the firm again demonstrated unmatched deal execution by adding the SK energy infrastructure transaction to its record.

SK MU and Ulsan GPS are particularly significant acquisitions because both assets are expected to play a central role in supplying power to AI data centers. Korea Investment PE's ability to craft a deal structure precisely tailored to SK Group's strategic needs elevated the firm's standing in the market by a full tier.

Building on the success of the SK energy infrastructure deal, Korea Investment PE has recently moved to establish a large-scale investment platform dedicated to physical infrastructure. The goal is to pursue AI infrastructure investments — along the lines of the SK MU and Ulsan GPS acquisitions — with greater ambition, while laying the groundwork to respond flexibly to next-generation infrastructure projects.

To that end, the firm plans to deploy 1 trillion won in capital. Primary targets include AI-dedicated data centers driven by the surge in power and computing demand from generative AI, as well as large-scale power generation facilities, energy storage systems, ultra-high-speed communications networks, and next-generation digital and energy infrastructure more broadly.

The platform will be built independently, without relying solely on capital commitments from external institutional investors, enabling faster capital deployment. Korea Investment PE hopes this will position it as a homegrown counterweight to global heavyweights such as Brookfield Asset Management, KKR and Blackstone, which have been aggressively deploying trillion-won-scale capital into AI infrastructure.

Korea Investment PE has also been making tangible progress in external fundraising. In January, the firm was selected as the general partner for a critical minerals and energy supply chain stabilization fund anchored by the Export-Import Bank of Korea, and completed the formation of a 135 billion won blind fund around July.

That blind fund is designed to serve as seed capital for larger project funds. The strategy reflects the nature of critical minerals and energy deals, where individual transaction sizes can run from hundreds of billions to trillions of won. Korea Investment PE plans to use the blind fund as a base and layer in deal-specific project funds on a case-by-case basis, actively investing in overseas critical mineral and energy infrastructure assets on behalf of Korean companies.

Execution is already taking shape. The firm is currently accelerating the formation of a project fund in the range of $200 million to $300 million, with plans to complete fundraising within the year and make its first investment between late this year and early next year.

Korea Investment PE is also working to establish a hybrid fund led by its special situations division, targeting a fund size of hundreds of billions of won with a year-end close. The fund combines mezzanine instruments — including convertible bonds and bonds with warrants — with direct lending. The firm plans to market the fund to limited partners on the strength of its dual appeal: downside protection and stable returns amid high interest rates and market uncertainty.