McAskill seeking investors for Chosun Fund
Bradley Martin writes in Bloomberg this morning:
A U.K. businessman is seeking to raise $50 million to invest in North Korea, reviving a 2005 plan after the U.S. government removed the communist regime from its list of countries that support terrorism.
ChosunFund Pte. Ltd. will join with North Korean partners for mining and energy projects, Colin McAskill, founder of the Singapore-incorporated fund, said in an interview.
“The country holds huge natural resources but is capital starved and lacks the technology and management skills with which to develop them,” McAskill said.
North Korea’s economy collapsed in the 1990s with the demise of communist regimes in Eastern Europe that had provided aid and favorable trade terms. McAskill scrapped the original fund after U.S.-imposed sanctions that led to a freezing of North Korean deposits at international banks.
The U.S. government removed the terrorist designation last October in exchange for wider scrutiny of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Feb. 20 that ties with North Korea won’t improve as long as it continues provocative verbal attacks on South Korea.
McAskill, 69, said he has been consulting on potential North Korean projects since 1987. While the country attracts one-off investment deals such as a recent contract licensing Orascom Telecom Holding SAE to provide wireless telephone services, it has struggled to raise money from global financial markets since defaulting on overseas debt in the 1970s.
London-based emerging markets money manager Fabien Pictet & Partners Ltd. was considering a fund that would invest in South Korean companies that do business with the North. The idea is “on hold for the time being,” Jonathan Neill, managing director, said in an e-mail.
Read the full story here:
North Korea Fund Seeks $50 Million After Terror Label Removed
Bloomberg
Bradley Martin
2/24/2009
