Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Smaller brokerage firms log better returns
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By Anna J. Park
By Anna J. Park
Smaller brokerage firms turn out to have higher return on equity (ROE) ― the measure of a company's net income, divided by its shareholders' equity ― as well as higher return on assets (ROA), compared to major securities firms.
According to data compiled by the Korea Investors Service, KTB Investment & Securities logged the highest ROE among local brokerage firms, as of the end of the third quarter. The firm's ROE of 36.9 percent is much higher than bigger companies, including Samsung Securities' 19.45 percent, NH Securities' 16.18 percent and Mirae Asset Securities' 13.16 percent.
Other smaller and medium-sized brokerage firms ― Kiwoom Securities, Heungkuk Securities, HanYang Securities, and eBest Securities ― all logged ROEs in the 20 percent range, which is higher than their bigger competitors.
In terms of ROA, Heungkuk Securities recorded the highest figure of 5.7 percent, which is 3.3 percentage points higher than its year-on-year figure.
KTB Investment & Securities, BNK Investment, eBest Investment and Kiwoom Securities followed the list, as they recorded ROAs respectively of 4.7 percent, 3.3 percent, 2.5 percent and 2.3 percent.
Market watchers largely attributed the improvement of both the ROE and the ROA in smaller brokerages to the increased amount of liquidity in the country's stock market due to the continued low interest rates. Small and medium-sized companies are shown to have been more efficient in increasing their net incomes amid these general favorable conditions for the brokerage industry.