Souring Global Office Bets Raise Risk of Korea Credit Crunch (2)

Investors in few, if any, countries in the world have been burned as badly by the collapse in the commercial real estate market as those in South Korea. Its pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers all plowed billions of dollars into properties across the globe just before the pandemic drove down their value.

But as the losses are tabulated, it is Korea’s brokerages — and especially the smallest of them — that are causing the most angst in Seoul. Regulators at the industry watchdog, the Financial Supervisory Service, are scrutinizing these securities firms particularly closely as they monitor ...