The Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) and National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (NACF) are seeking to establish a joint venture to find lucrative overseas alternative investments with an aim to increase national wealth.

Park Hak-joo, NACF’s chief investment officer, said during a seminar held on Wednesday to mark the 15th anniversary of the KIC in Seoul that it is working with the sovereign wealth fund to set up a joint venture to form an overseas alternative investment fund on the back of their ongoing partnership since they signed a memorandum of understanding to extend cooperation in overseas investment last year.

If the deal goes through, it would be the first external investment that the KIC would attract excluding the Bank of Korea’s foreign exchange reserves and the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s exchange equalization fund. The central bank and finance ministry invested a combined $108.1 billion in the fund, which has now grown to $157.3 billion.

“Deal sourcing is very important to raise profits when there is an increasing capital but limited investment targets,” said Park, adding that that’s why the NACF is seeking to cooperate with the KIC to share its broad global network.

The NACF has 402 trillion won ($334.5 billion) in assets under management, of which 266 trillion won are loans and the remaining 136 trillion won are from economic business such as Hanaro Mart and management of securities. But its return on assets (ROA) stands at only 0.42 percent due to the loss from the business that is being operated mostly for public benefits.

The KIC is also seeking to increase joint investments with institutional investors including the National Pension Service and mutual aid associations.

“We are looking for opportunities to make a joint investment in overseas assets by extending our cooperation beyond information sharing,” KIC president Choi Hee-nam said in his opening speech at the seminar.

Choi also said that the KIC aims to increase its assets under management to $400 billion by 2035 through strengthened partnership with domestic financial institutions and efforts to enhance long-term profits.

By Han Woo-ram and Choi Mira

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