By Park Hyong-ki
Staff Reporter
Fifty domestic and foreign asset management companies posted a combined pretax profit of 178 billion won in the first quarter of April to June, up 105 percent from 87 billion won a year earlier.
This means that a single asset manager brought in an average of 3.6 billion won in that fiscal period, up 100 percent, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
``The recent stock investment boom has contributed to the rise of fund management fees for asset management firms, thus leading to their income hike,'' attributed the FSS.
The regulatory body noted that 50 asset management companies' management fees rose by 81 percent to 115 billion won as of June this year.
With a growing number of investors investing in equities both at home and abroad, the total assets under management (AUM) for stock and bond funds and other short-term debt securities reached 279 trillion as of the end of June, up 23 percent from a year ago.
Stock funds had been the most sought after by investors with AUM funds gaining 77 trillion, accounting for 28 percent of the total equity investment.
AUM funds investing in overseas equities, meanwhile, increased by a whopping 377 percent to 53 trillion won.
Of 35 local asset managers, Mirae Asset Investment Management earned the highest pretax income of 22 billion won, followed by Samsung Investment Trust Management at 10 billion won and Korea Investment Trust Management at 8 billion won.
Of 15 foreign asset management companies, Prudential Asset Management earned the most with 33 billion won, followed by Macquarie Shinhan Infrastructure Asset Management with 32 billion won and PCA with 4 billion won.
Investment funds from domestic companies accounted for 82 percent with AUM of 229 trillion won.
The top five domestic firms, including Mirae Asset, Samsung and Daehan, accounted for 38 percent of the total AUM funds, noted the FSS.
Despite U.S. subprime fiasco, flows of fresh money into equity funds has continued, brightening the earnings prospects of fund management firms.
The outstanding amount of domestic and foreign equity funds rose by 4.1 trillion won to 78.7 trillion won as of Aug. 16 from 74.6 trillion won at the end of July 31.
Overseas equity funds also rose to 31.8 trillion won from 30.3 trillion won during the period.
Demand for equity funds investing in China and Latin America has been steadily rising. Analysts said that flows of fresh funds are expected to slow if the stock market continues its correction but any massive redemption of funds has been ruled out.