Overseas business drives Mirae Asset's growth

Mirae Asset Financial Group's Center 1 building in central Seoul / Courtesy of Mirae Asset Group

Overseas business drove Mirae Asset Financial Group's record earnings last year, the group said Wednesday.

According to the group, its operating profit, pre-tax profit and net profit for 2019 stood at 1.12 trillion won, 1.64 trillion won and 1.14 trillion won, respectively. Mirae Asset said it is the first time all three have exceeded 1 trillion won.

Mirae Asset's brokerage, asset management, life insurance, capital and consulting units all saw their operating profit, pretax profit and net profit grow. Mirae Asset Capital and Mirae Asset Consulting, which posted net losses up until 2018, saw a respective 165.7 billion won and 49.4 billion won in net profit last year.

The group attributes growth in earnings to Chairman Park Hyeon-joo's emphasis on boosting global competitiveness.

Mirae Asset made inroads into overseas markets, starting with Hong Kong in 2003. Currently the group has 40 outlets operating in 15 locations worldwide.

The group's overseas subsidiaries posted 210 billion won in pre-tax profits in 2019. This is more than a 70 percent growth from the figure recorded in 2018.

The group's pre-tax profit from overseas subsidiaries accounts for 19 percent of the group's total pretax profit.

Mirae Asset Group's equity capital has also seen rapid growth. It stood at 13 trillion won in 2017, grew to 14 trillion won in 2018 and exceeded 16 trillion won in 2019.

The group said its net liquid assets came down to 10.22 trillion won, which is still up from 9 trillion won in 2017.

Net liquid assets is a measure of total liquid assets minus current liabilities.