Affinity hit by China fears among JobKorea users

Seen is a screen capture of Affinity Equity Partners' website.

Recruitment portal says PEF isn't based in Hong Kong

By Park Jae-hyuk

The nationality of Affinity Equity Partners has come under controversy, since the foreign private equity firm's (PEF) recent takeover of JobKorea has drawn severe backlash from some users of Korea's top recruitment portal, who fear possible leakage of their personal information to China.

Regardless of the location of its official headquarters on paper, Affinity has long been considered a Hong Kong-based firm by most global market insiders because Chairman Park Young-taeg and other key decision-makers are said to reside there.

Although JobKorea's previous owner, H&Q Korea, was also under control of H&Q Asia Pacific's Hong Kong office in the past, most market insiders now regard it as a domestic PEF after its spin-off in 2004.

Some JobKorea users therefore believed that the online portal was sold to a Chinese company.

Korean users started a campaign to delete their accounts, sharing ways to remove their resumes, photos, phone numbers and academic background information from the websites of JobKorea and its affiliate, Albamon, a part-time listing service provider. Previous movements were seen here among users of TikTok and WeChat after U.S. authorities alleged those apps had been collecting their user information illegally.

Their movement has been seen as a seriously unfavorable factor for Affinity that acquired an entire stake in JobKorea for an estimated price of 900 billion won ($800 million), considering that the PEF needs to sell the online portal for a higher price within a few years to make a profit to be distributed to its investors.

JobKorea logo / Courtesy of JobKorea

In response to the anti-China sentiment among its users, JobKorea emphasized in its Wednesday press release that its new owner's official headquarters is in the Cayman Islands, not Hong Kong, saying Affinity is a North America-based firm that has managed funds by raising money from various global enterprises and institutional investors.

“Since it spun off in March 2004 from UBS Capital Asia Pacific, a private equity arm of Switzerland's UBS, Affinity has mainly made investments in the Asia-Pacific region with its offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul and Sydney,” JobKorea wrote in its press release. “It has made 54 investments so far, and 22 among them were made in Korea.”

The recruitment portal dismissed concerns about user information leakage, saying it is subject to Korean law and the change in its largest shareholder will not cause any change in its personal information management policies. It also emphasized its server is located in Korea.

As of 2018, JobKorea accounted for about 40 percent of the nation's job listing market, while Albamon held more than 60 percent of the part-time market. Based on its strong grip on the local market, the site has logged an annual average growth rate of around 20 percent.