[2024 Capital Investment Target] Korea Investment & Securities, Customer Asset Management Focused on 'Asset Growth'

WM Division Excellence Award

Kim Sung-hwan, President of Korea Investment & Securities. Photo by Korea Investment & Securities

Korea Investment & Securities received the Best Asset Management (WM) Award at the '2024 Asia Capital Investment Awards.' This achievement is the result of leading efforts to enhance the stability and profitability of client asset management through securing competitive products such as bonds, profit and loss differential funds, and global products.

Korea Investment & Securities has focused on increasing customer assets by continuously developing new products and strengthening asset management (AM) services through non-face-to-face channel services linked with Toss Bank, Kakao Bank, and K Bank. As a result, the balance of financial products for individual customers surpassed 60 trillion KRW for the first time in the securities industry, reaching 65.85 trillion KRW as of the end of Q3 this year. Looking at the trend of increasing individual customer financial product balances over the past six months, approximately 1.5 trillion KRW of new funds have flowed in monthly through retail channels.

The company also succeeded in attracting funds that could not find investment destinations amid stock market turmoil. After launching the overseas equity-type ‘Korea Investment Global New Growth Fund’ and the domestic equity-type profit and loss differential public fund ‘Korea Investment Value K-Power Fund’ last year, Korea Investment & Securities introduced the ‘Korea Investment Global AI Big Tech Fund,’ ‘Korea Value AI Innovation Small and Medium Materials Fund,’ ‘Korea Investment Samsung Group Growth Theme Fund,’ and ‘Korea Value Corporate Value Focus Fund’ this year. According to Korea Investment & Securities, each fund has recorded favorable returns since inception.

It is also recognized for creating opportunities to invest in global products that were less accessible to domestic individual investors. A representative example is the ‘Korea Investment Carlyle CLO Fund,’ created in partnership with the global private equity fund manager Carlyle. This fund has gained popularity among high-net-worth individuals, raising 133.2 billion KRW and is currently performing well.

Based on the title of ‘First Mega IB,’ Korea Investment & Securities has firmly maintained its top position in the issuance note market. The balance of Korea Investment & Securities’ issuance notes exceeded 17 trillion KRW as of the end of Q3 this year, marking the largest scale among securities firms.

In the retirement pension sector, the company has improved the performance of defined benefit (DB) retirement pension management by proposing customized management strategies for companies. It was selected as a top 10% operator in the ‘2023 Excellent Retirement Pension Operator Evaluation’ announced by the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Korea Workers' Compensation & Welfare Service. As of Q3 this year, Korea Investment & Securities’ retirement pension reserves amounted to 14.4822 trillion KRW, an 11.7% increase compared to the end of the previous year.

Korea Investment & Securities is also focusing on asset management services for ultra-high-net-worth individuals such as emerging wealthy clients. The Family Office Department, newly established within the Global Wealth Management (GWM) division dedicated to super-rich clients, selects clients annually and provides various exclusive services including global investment, asset succession, tax and tax-saving strategies, real estate market consulting, ‘annual asset review’ services, and ‘Art & Culture’ events tailored to each family. Currently, the number of GWM clients has increased by about 32% compared to 2021. This growth is attributed to teams composed of experts in global investment, taxation, real estate, and other fields providing customized fund management solutions for each client.