Global investment bank giant Goldman Sachs Group has become a power behind cross-border e-commerce mergers and acquisition deals in East Asia.

According to investment bank industry sources on Thursday, Goldman played a pivotal role in arranging China-based Ant Financial Services Group’s $200 million investment in Kakao Pay, mobile wallet of Korea’s top messaging operator Kakao Corp. Ant Financial is an affiliate of China’s largest online retailer Alibaba Group Holding. Its Korean branch is headed by Chung Hyoung-kwon, Goldman’s ex-banker and younger brother of Chung Hyoung-jin, head of Goldman’s Korean branch.

The Chung brothers had support from a high-profile troop of Goldman Sachs. Michael Evans, president of Alibaba was chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia Pacific between 2008 and 2013, and Ant Financial’s senior vice president Douglas Feagin who coordinated the investment in Korean mobile wallet also is a former Goldman Sachs banker.

“Goldman Sachs people have a strong network power that is maintained even after they leave the company,” one bank industry official said.

In June 2015, Goldman Sachs organized a $1 billion funding for Coupang, Korea’s top e-commerce portal, from Japan’s IT-behemoth SoftBank. Younger Chung had led Coupang’s financial executive before he assumed his leadership at Ant Financial’s Korean office at the beginning of this year, and elder Chung reportedly earned roughly 40 billion won ($34.8 million) in commission revenue by providing advisory service on SoftBank’s investment in Coupang.

Mark Schwartz, ex-chairman of Goldman’s Asia Pacific region, had been an outside director of SoftBank for 14 years including in 2015 when the Japanese IT guru decided its $1 billion funding for the Korean e-commerce company. Schwartz had been one of Goldman’s key men on Alibaba’s $25 billion initial public offering that delivered roughly 6 trillion won proceeds to SoftBank, the major shareholder of Alibaba.

By Han Woo-ram

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