Korea Investment & Securities Accelerates Global Market Expansion

Korea Investment & Securities is actively targeting the U.S. market to expand its global business. The company plans to discover excellent products and transactions in advanced financial markets and supply them to domestic investors, aiming to become a strong player in the global market.

Expanding Overseas Territories by Partnering with Global Financial Groups

Korea Investment & Securities has been actively operating in the U.S. financial market. Last year, it formed a strategic alliance with The Carlyle Group to supply high-quality products such as collateralized loan obligation (CLO) funds to the domestic market and provide opportunities for direct investment in various transactions. CLOs are structured products that pool secured loans (leveraged loans) from multiple companies and issue securities based on the resulting cash flows. While institutional investors such as pension funds, hedge funds, and insurance companies actively invest in advanced financial markets, domestic individual investors have faced high investment barriers.

Korea Investment & Securities plans to invest $300 million (approximately 406 billion KRW) in funds established by Carlyle. Additionally, it will exclusively sell overseas credit-related products created by Carlyle in Korea, with an annual scale of about $4 billion (approximately 5.4 trillion KRW).

Last year, the company established a joint venture called 'SF Credit Partners' with the U.S. financial firm Stifel Financial Corp. and launched acquisition finance and private debt (PD) businesses locally in the U.S. This targets the rapidly growing global corporate loan market. Through this new business, Korea Investment & Securities plans to enhance its corporate finance (IB) capabilities and rapidly expand its network in the world's financial hubs.

The main business area is middle market loans, which are direct loans to medium and small-sized enterprises. This involves non-bank financial companies gathering investment funds to provide loans to companies for refinancing, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and operational needs. This sector is limited for direct participation by global major banks due to regulations such as the Dodd-Frank Act and the Volcker Rule, making it a niche market.

A Korea Investment & Securities official said, "The global private debt market has grown significantly since the financial crisis, influenced by banks reducing corporate loans and increasing corporate capital demand through private debt." The company has secured licenses from U.S. financial authorities to operate and is pursuing various businesses. In the fourth quarter of last year, riding the momentum of an active acquisition finance market, it recorded a net profit, achieving profitability less than a year after establishment.

Besides establishing the joint venture, Korea Investment & Securities has built a cooperation system with Stifel Financial across business divisions. This aims to enhance global competitiveness in various areas such as stock brokerage, IB advisory, and asset management by expanding new business discovery, personnel exchanges, and product sharing.

A representative example is the 'Sleepless in US' service launched in March this year. It selects and translates stock reports from local U.S. analysts and provides them twice daily to individual customers. The service carefully curates key stock reports from Stifel's latest reports published on the same day, which have high investor interest and information value, delivering them to Korean investors at 8:30 AM and 5:00 PM daily. Considering the time lag of over two business days for U.S. reports to be disclosed in Korea, the service aligns with the U.S. pre-market and after-market sessions by providing reports twice a day.

Furthermore, through personnel exchanges between the two companies, training is being conducted on U.S. business areas such as acquisition finance, ECM, and DCM.

Kim Sung-hwan, President of Korea Investment & Securities, is giving a speech at the 'KIS Night in New York' held in New York, USA, on the 16th (local time). (Provided by Korea Investment & Securities)

Korea Investment & Securities Holds Its Own New York IR Event... President Kim Seong-hwan: "Discovering and Supplying Financial Products Is Important... The Answer Lies in the Global Market"

"As Korea's retail market size has significantly increased, discovering and supplying excellent financial products for customers has become even more important."

Kim Seong-hwan, President of Korea Investment & Securities, recently emphasized the importance of the global market at the 'KIS Night in New York' held in New York, USA.

On the 16th (local time), Korea Investment & Securities participated in the 'Invest K-Finance' event jointly hosted by the Financial Supervisory Service and the Korea Exchange in New York, and held its own IR event, KIS Night. This Korea Investment & Securities New York IR event was organized to discover investment opportunities in advanced financial markets and to interact with global investors. About 100 people attended, including Lee Bok-hyun, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, Jung Eun-bo, Chairman of the Korea Exchange, and portfolio managers and analysts from local investment institutions.

At the event, President Kim said, "The answer lies in entering the global market, and today's event can be the first step in finding that answer."

Lee Bok-hyun, Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, said, "Among domestic securities firms, Korea Investment & Securities is the most progressive in expanding its global business. The entry into the North American private bond market through 'SF Credit Partners' established with Stifel and the strategic partnership with Carlyle are being recognized as exemplary cases of global business."