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| The headquarters of Mirae Asset in central Seoul / Courtesy of Mirae Asset |
By Anna J. Park
Despite an unprecedented level of market uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mirae Asset's cumulative profits from 40 overseas branches in a dozen countries during the first three quarters of this year stood at 244.3 billion won ($222 million), exceeding the 238.3 billion won earned for all of 2019. The earnings represent 17 percent of the entire Mirae Asset Group's profits so far this year.
The majority came from the financial group's brokerage arm Mirae Assest Daewoo that garnered 173.8 billion won in profits abroad. The all-time record high came from active investments in pre-IPOs in new growth industries, digital platforms and differentiated strategies for each region.
The remaining 70.5 billion won came from Mirae Asset Global Investments, far exceeding its last year's total earnings of 67.4 billion won. The asset manager runs various ETFs, including Mirae Asset Global that was listed on the Hong Kong Exchange in 2006, the first among domestic asset management firms. The ETF continued to aggressively acquire major ETF management firms, including Canada's Horizon ETFs, Australia's BetaShares and the U.S.' Global X.
According to a database operated by the Korea Financial Investment Association (KOFIA) as of the end of September, the capital assets of Mirae Asset Group were about 16 trillion won. Of which, Mirae Asset Global Investments runs 2.21 trillion won from the standard of integrated financial statements, the largest among local asset management companies. The capital is larger than the aggregated capital of asset managers in second to sixth place in order of size.
Mirae Asset Daewoo operates 9.57 trillion won in capital, which is about 4 trillion won more than the second largest brokerage firm in the nation's securities firms' "league table." The financial group explained that the solid overseas performance by its affiliates was based on aggressive overseas investment utilizing the capital assets.
