Public investor regrets Merrill Lynch investment

The state-run Korea Investment Corp. said that its $2 billion investment in Merrill Lynch was a mistake.

“In 2008, KIC made the wrong decision to invest in Merrill Lynch,” said Ahn Hong-chul, chairman and CEO of KIC, at a press briefing on Monday. “We regret the investment that inflicted damage on our assets and to our investors.”

This was the first official apology from the company, which has recorded a total loss of $800 million over the past six years.

The Merrill Lynch investment was brought up at a recent regular parliamentary audit when Rep. Park Beom-kye of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy pointed out that the scheme was a disastrous case of government influence-peddling that triggered huge financial damages.

The KIC head, who at the time was auditor of the firm, said he was forced to step down from his post for being initially opposed to the investment plans.

KIC’s losses later snowballed when Bank of America took over Merrill Lynch in 2009 in the aftermath of a global financial crisis. The BOA shares KIC was given in exchange for its Merrill Lynch convertible stocks plunged, and eventually pulled down KIC’s accumulated profit rate to minus 76.77 percent.

But KIC said it will continue to retain the BOA stocks on positive future prospects. Ahn added that Merrill Lynch BOA has settled most of its legal disputes with the U.S. government and is unlikely to face further litigation.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)