Shown above is the head office of Mirae Asset Securities in downtown Seoul. The foremost brokerage house of South Korea announced that it chalked up the best quarterly profit in the first three months of this year. Photo courtesy of Mirae Asset Securities

Korea’s leading brokerage triples bottom line in 1Q

Mirae Asset Securities, Korea’s leading brokerage house, announced on May 7 that it chalked up a profit of 419.1 billion won ($377 million) during the first quarter of this year, up 202.2 percent from a year before.

It marks Mirae Asset Securities’ biggest quarterly profit. The Seoul-based outfit’s sales amounted to 4.76 trillion won during the January-March period.

Mirae Asset Securities have been widely expected to rack up solid incomes in the first three months of this year. And its operating profit was around 2.5 percent higher than the market consensus.

The company said that the bullish stock market contributed to the record result, together with its outstanding performances in offshore markets and corporate segments.

“Our overseas businesses are doing well. We have also fared well in the initial public offering (IPO) market to underpin our bottom line,” a Mirae Asset Securities official said.

Unprecedented milestones

Indeed, the company noted early this week that it had achieved the feat of reaching 20 trillion won in overseas stocks and 20 trillion won in pension assets for the first time in Korea.

It took four years for Mirae Asset Securities to achieve the unprecedented exploit after it reached 1 trillion won in overseas stock assets in early 2017. The figure rocketed by more than 4 trillion won this year alone.

During the four-year period, Mirae Asset Securities helped its clients earn up to 5 trillion won from overseas stock investments.

The outfit has also focused on exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for the customers’ well-diversified portfolio. ETFs are investment instruments geared toward tracking an index as compared to index funds.

Thanks to their low management fees and high price visibility, ETFs have taken firm root around the world since their debut in the early 1990s.

In particular, Mirae Asset Global Investments launched the world’s first ETF that bets on the plunge of Bitcoin midway through April. The firm is the sister company of Mirae Asset Securities.
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