[Market Focus] Korea Financial Group Jumps 5% on Record Results Since Founding

Korea Financial Group is showing strong performance on May 15. This comes as securities firms have raised their target prices following the company's record-breaking results since its founding.

As of 10:20 a.m. on this day, Korea Financial Group is trading at 94,100 won, up 5,100 won (5.73%) from the previous trading day.

The previous day, Korea Financial Group announced that its consolidated net profit for the first quarter of this year reached 458.4 billion won. This represents a 34.7% increase compared to the same period last year and exceeds the average forecast of securities firms by more than 30%. Operating profit was 529.6 billion won, up 38.8% year-on-year.

Park Hyejin, a researcher at Daishin Securities, analyzed, "Not only did brokerage revenue increase due to higher trading volume, but investment banking (IB) commission income also reached an all-time high at 127.5 billion won." She added, "In particular, revenue related to project financing (PF) and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) saw significant growth."

She went on to explain that this performance is attributed to strengthened business operations, as well as the easing of provisioning that had been a drag until the end of last year. She also noted that Korea Financial Group's subsidiaries have recovered their normal profit levels. Accordingly, she raised her target price from 100,000 won to 120,000 won.

On this day, all of Shinhan Investment Corp. (from 90,000 won to 115,000 won), Mirae Asset Securities (from 110,000 won to 120,000 won), and Meritz Securities (from 97,000 won to 110,000 won) also raised their target prices.