Mirae Asset Securities reaps fruits of global growth

Marking 20 years of Hong Kong unit, brokerage firm looks to take leap in India

The headquarters of the Mirae Asset Financial Group in Jung-gu, Seoul (Mirae Asset Securities)

Mirae Asset Securities, Korea’s largest stock brokerage company, has yielded solid results and created a strong impetus for growth in overseas markets after two decades of global expansion.

Park Hyeon-joo, chairman of the Mirae Asset Financial Group, which covers comprehensive financial services including asset management, wealth management, investment banking and life insurance, has been spearheading the group's ambition to expand businesses beyond familiar horizons.

Mirae Asset Securities established a Hong Kong subsidiary in 2004 with an equity capital of $5 million. Since then, its capital has grown by nearly 600-fold, exceeding about $3.4 billion in 20 years.

“Korean companies have to take bold actions to tap into the global market through merger and acquisition deals that could contribute to creating national wealth,” Park said.

The brokerage firm operated 12 overseas subsidiaries and three offices, holding the largest overseas network among the 14 Korean brokerage houses that entered foreign markets as of the end of 2023.

“Mirae Asset Securities’ persistence in profit diversification efforts including organic growth as well as merger and acquisition deals it has pushed in overseas market has paid off,” a company official said.

Leveraging its global presence, Mirae Asset Securities said that its customers earned more than 1 trillion won ($733 million) in profits through overseas stocks in 2023, the basis for reporting foreign stock capital gains tax. Total accumulated profits since 2020 exceed 4.5 trillion won.

It also carried out a major organizational reshuffle encompassing both its Korean headquarters and overseas branches last year. Rhee Jung-ho, the CEO of its Hong Kong unit, was promoted to vice chairman in charge of overall global business and named Han Hyeon-hee as the head of the Global Biz Division.

The company made great strides, especially in the Indian market.

In India, the firm took over a local securities company Sharekhan Limited, marking the first Korean securities company to acquire a local company in 2023, five years after entering the Indian capital market in 2018.

Founded in 2000, Sharekhan Limited is the 10th-largest securities company in the local industry with a total of 3,500 employees, about 3 million accounts, and more than 4,000 business partners in 400 regions across India.

It plans to become one of the top five securities companies in India within four years by maximizing business synergy with Mirae Asset Global Investments’ Indian subsidiary.

“Mirae Asset Securities expects to achieve growth that would be different from other financial companies through its global business. We believe that a virtuous cycle structure has been created in which active investment leads to growth and growth leads to performance again,” the company official said.

In February, the Indian unit of Mirae Asset Securities said the number of its retail customer accounts has exceeded 1 million.

The firm has become India's fastest-growing securities firm, surging to eighth among local online securities firms and 16th overall as of Jan. 24, less than two years after the launch of the online trading platform M-Stock in April 2022.

Mirae Asset Securities' India unit handles 2.14 million daily average trading volumes and has customer assets worth about 730 billion won along with around 180 billion won worth of margin trading funding. It is set to launch M-Stock 2.0 later this year, aiming to enhance customer service and further strengthen its customer base.

Mirae Asset Securities has strengthened its brokerage business in India with aggressive online marketing conducted with its equity capital increased to $450 million through a rights issue in early May last year.

By Park Han-na(hnpark@heraldcorp.com)