Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
INTERVIEW Star analyst-turned-CEO launches his own private equity firm
Aimbridge Founder and CEO Hwang Sang-youn / Courtesy of Aimbridge
By Anna J. Park
By Anna J. Park
Hwang Sang-youn is a trailblazer who has not hesitated to change his life's path during the last three decades of his career. His diverse work experiences as a stellar engineer, stock analyst, CFO and CEO led the 52-year to establish a private equity company of his own, Aimbridge LLC, earlier this year.
He made the decision to open his own business shortly after resigning from his previous post as a head of the private equity business at Brain Asset Management late last year. Prior to the position, he served as CEO at Chong Kun Dang (CKD) Holdings, one of the major pharmaceutical companies in Korea, and as the CFO at MDimune, a bio-therapeutics venture firm.
During his career path, constant challenges in new fields have expanded Hwang's realm of expertise. The bio and finance expert started his career as a chemistry researcher back in 1995, after receiving both bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry from Seoul National University. After working as a researcher at LG Chem for five years, he decided to become a stock analyst in the bio and chemistry industries.
During the next 13 years as a stock analyst, he rose to become a famed analyst, his chemistry expertise aiding him to discover hidden gem companies, including Celltrion, Chong Kun Dang, Bukwang Pharmaceutical, KCC, OCI and more. He was selected as the best analyst of chemistry and pharmaceuticals almost every year.
Hwang recounted that he could make differentiated reports on such firms, particularly in new drug and solar energy sectors, based on his depth of knowledge accumulated as a chemical engineer. His capacity for precise insight into the industries made him the youngest head of research at Mirae Asset Securities from 2008 to 2013.
“Then I had a chance to study at the University of Washington from 2013 to 2014 as a visiting scholar. During that time, I got to study the venture capital and private equity scene of the U.S. and was impressed that the country has an ample number of angel investors of more than 300,000. I also realized that venture capital and private equity funds have a more direct impact on economic development than publicly traded stocks,” Hwang told The Korea Times during a recent interview.
This realization led him to work as the CFO at MDimune, the bio venture firm, and as the CEO at Chong Kun Dang (CKD) Holdings, after returning to Korea. While working as a management executive at various firms, ranging from venture and pharmaceuticals to asset management, he identified a problem of the general lack of analysis on non-public companies. This awareness led him to set up his own private equity firm based on in-depth research on both the industries and individual companies.
“My direct motivation for entrepreneurship stems from the fact that the venture capital and private equity markets have relatively insufficient information and suffer from severe information asymmetry, compared to the public stock market,” Hwang highlighted. “Also, the need for systematic analysis of non-public companies is becoming increasingly important due to the rising number of individual investors entering the market,” he explained.
Currently, in order to find lucrative deal opportunities, Hwang is working on developing a corporate valuation assessment solution to establish a thorough database, utilizing the financial information of 37,000 local firms that are subject to external audits.
“The firm aims to expand its business, based on the database. I believe a private equity firm can grow sustainability long-term, only if it has a solid research and analysis capacity,” Hwang stressed.
As his firm is still in the starting phase, it is focusing on providing consulting and research advisory services for now, aiming gradually to expand to forming private equity funds in the future.