Real Estate Finance Markets of Korea and Japan Grow Closer Greetings from SPI editor Koh Byung-ki. This is the weekly commentary for the third week of November. Japanese banks have been expanding their footprint in the Korean commercial real estate market. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), and Mizuho Bank are participating more often as leaders in significant large-scale transactions. For example, Japanese banks participated in the refinancing of Gangnam Finance Center (GFC), which is owned by the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) last June. GIC secured a KRW 1 trillion loan to refinance GFC’s existing KRW 732.1 billion loan with participation from Japanese banks […]