KODEX Healthcare Surpasses 100 Billion KRW in Net Assets

Pension Funds and Others Concentrate 27.1 Billion Won in Purchases
Bio and Healthcare Designated as National Advanced Strategic Industries

Samsung Asset Management announced on the 2nd that the Samsung KODEX Healthcare ETF has surpassed 100 billion KRW in net assets for the first time, recording 100.5 billion KRW.

This ETF is a product that allows diversified investment in the domestic healthcare and pharmaceutical industry sectors and is a representative ETF related to domestic healthcare. It was listed in March 2017, follows the KRX Healthcare Index as its underlying index, and has a total expense ratio of 0.09% per year.

The KODEX Healthcare ETF has attracted increased investor interest since around April, following the rise of secondary battery stocks, with the bio/healthcare industry emerging as the next focus. Recently, the government designated the bio/healthcare sector as a national advanced strategic industry and announced plans to nurture it as the second semiconductor industry, which is also analyzed to have positively influenced net asset inflows. In fact, from April to the end of May, individual funds net purchased 4.1 billion KRW and pension funds and others net purchased 27.1 billion KRW, resulting in the net asset size growing 163% from about 38.3 billion KRW at the end of March to surpass 100 billion KRW. During this period, the KODEX Healthcare ETF recorded a return of 8.66%, while the KOSPI rose 3.24% and the KOSDAQ rose 1.11%.

Meanwhile, the KODEX Bio ETF also saw net inflows of 27.3 billion KRW from individual funds and 33.5 billion KRW from pension funds and other corporations since April, nearly doubling its net asset size to a record high of 118.8 billion KRW. The return during this period was 6.25%.

The KODEX Bio ETF focuses on investing intensively in companies actively engaged in the bio industry, whereas the KODEX Healthcare ETF invests more broadly across all pharmaceutical fields including biopharmaceuticals, synthetic pharmaceuticals, and medical device companies.

The KODEX Healthcare ETF invests in 84 companies including Celltrion (20.6%), Samsung Biologics (14.5%), Celltrion Healthcare (8.9%), Yuhan Corporation (4.0%), and Hanmi Pharmaceutical (2.6%). The KODEX Bio ETF invests in 50 companies including Lunit (3.7%), Voronoi (2.8%), Alteogen (2.68%), Classys (2.6%), and Dentium (2.5%).

Lee Daehwan, a manager at Samsung Asset Management, said, “KODEX Healthcare is a representative ETF that allows diversified investment in the domestic healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. The bio/healthcare industry is the biggest beneficiary sector in the aging era with increasing interest in health management, and since the government has strongly expressed its intention to nurture it as the second semiconductor industry, investment demand and growth are expected to continue steadily in the future.”