Ki Jeong "Kelly" Lee has been appointed to lead IFM Investors' new Seoul office as client relationship director, a spokesman for the Sydney-based global infrastructure investment firm confirmed Friday.
Ms. Lee comes to IFM from Samsung Life Insurance, where she served as general manager, investor relations, the spokesman said. A Samsung Life spokesman couldn't immediately be reached for comment on a replacement.
Seoul becomes IFM's eighth office globally and its third in the Asia-Pacific region outside of Australia, following Tokyo and Hong Kong.
CEO Brett Himbury noted in a news release that institutional investors in Korea are "increasingly allocating to non-traditional asset classes" as they face the challenge of funding an adequate retirement for the country's aging population.
IFM announced in April that it established a $480 million fund, in partnership with Samsung Asset Management, to invest in overseas infrastructure debt assets on behalf of Korean institutional investors.
