전문사모집합투자기구의 개인 적격투자자 기준에 대한 고찰

Abstract

With the introduction of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Market Act, and the transition to a principle based supervisory system, Korea introduced the first stage of hedge fund – accredited investor collective investment scheme – to its financial market for the first time. Hedge fund can play an important role in financial markets when well managed, but can lead to unwanted, destructive consequence when mismanaged. The financial market in Korea has been growing rapidly in all aspects after Korean financial crisis, however, the infrastructure for monitoring the private equity market is still far behind when compared with other advanced countries. Some commentators may argue that heavy restriction on natural person’s hedge fund investment would be still necessary to protect the investor. However, the current regulatory definition of accredited investor for collective investment scheme should be changed in order to introduce “real” hedge fund in Korean financial markets. Recently in United States, the Dodd-Frank Act modifies the definition of accredited investor in Regulation D under the Securities Act. Under the formal terms of the Dodd-Frank Act, an individual must exclude her primary residence for purposes of determining whether the individual meets the $1,000,000 net worth accredited investor standard. Prior to enactment, the value of the investor's primary residence is included in such investor's net worth. While each of investor definitions, such as accredited investor or qualified investor, may serve a different purpose in creating different exemptions from the securities laws, there is a certain intellectual incoherence in the proposal of many different definitions for the same basic idea of an investor who does not need the protections of the securities law and who wishes to invest with a greater freedom than the government generally allows. This article evaluates the impact that the accredited natural person standard would have on both the market and individual investors in U.S. capital markets. While Dodd-Frank Act has just modified a current accredited investor standard, the Korean government should adopt an additional standard to supplement the definition of the accredited investor. Such a proposal is appropriate with the Korean government's objective to create a bright-line standard that increases the protection of investors.