Glenwood Private Equity

Glenwood Private Equity was founded in 2012 by Peter Joon-Sung Lee. Before establishing the firm, Lee was a senior executive at The Carlyle Group, where he focused on buyout investments across Korea and North Asia. His tenure at Carlyle provided the institutional origination discipline that Glenwood brought to the independent sponsor model in Seoul.

Glenwood executes control buyouts, with a particular emphasis on corporate carve-outs from large Korean conglomerates. The firm also pursues secondary buyouts, growth equity, and selective PIPE transactions. Its mandate focuses on businesses with enterprise values typically between $100 million and $500 million.

Much of Glenwood's deal flow comes from direct, bilateral negotiation with the chaebol — families and corporate development teams at Korea's largest industrial groups — seeking to divest non-core subsidiaries. This relationship-driven model bypasses broad auction processes and depends on the firm's ability to structure transactions that satisfy regulatory, family, and shareholder sensitivities simultaneously.

In June 2023, Glenwood and co-investor Hahn & Company sold their combined stake in Hanon Systems, an auto-parts manufacturer, to a strategic buyer (per Reuters, 2023). The exit represented a full-cycle realization in the industrials sector and validated the firm's carve-out thesis.

Glenwood's primary geographic focus is South Korea, but the firm has evaluated and executed transactions across North Asia. Its sector expertise in industrials, consumer goods, and healthcare allows it to pursue cross-border opportunities where Korean corporate relationships provide a proprietary angle on regional assets.