Money Games

Chapter 4New Faces at the Table

As reporters say, we made great copy. The announcement of the deal touched off a media frenzy. Not only was the timing of our agreement dramatic, coming as it did on the last day of the year, but it also catapulted Newbridge to prominence from relative obscurity. Some just did not believe that a relatively unknown private equity firm could have outmaneuvered HSBC, one of the largest banks in the world, to accomplish such a feat.

Among those who apparently did not believe it was a reporter for the New York Times, who filed a dispatch, dated January 1, 1999, giving credit to GE Capital as KFB's lead investor: “The South Korean Government signed an agreement today to sell a controlling stake in Korea First Bank to a consortium led by GE Capital, the world's largest nonbank financial services company, and Newbridge Capital.”

The reporter clearly hadn't done any fact checking. While we had originally proposed bringing in GE Capital as a way to build credibility with the FSC, we ultimately did not include it in the deal. The New York Times reporter probably presumed that only some big, well-known company could pull off a deal like this one.

News of Newbridge's deal was splashed across the front pages of all the major Korean and English newspapers. Many foreign investors considered it risky and adventurous to invest in a failed bank in the middle of a financial crisis with no end in sight. Others called to congratulate us. The deal had certainly put ...