All Over the World

Hyundai Securities strives to build its IB network in niche and advanced markets

Hyundai Securities Co. is striving to extend its lead over rivals in terms of principle investment (PI) strategies. The company's overseas offices in such advanced countries as the United States and Britain have become strategic bases for making direct investments, a change from their usual role of merely managing investments in stocks in the countries they operate. This is part of its plan to expand the company's investment banking sector.
Hyundai Securities President Kim Ji-wan has been making frequent tours abroad in search of talented people with overseas financial expertise to strengthen the company's IB sector.
The company has been focusing on emerging countries like China, India, and Vietnam as well as advanced markets to globalize its operations. The company sees China as a key base for its operation due to its enormous potential as a financial market for the world. The company's strategy for China is to take over an important segment of its financial market and beat its rivals to the punch.
In 2005, Hyundai Securities became the first Korean financial company to take over $200 million worth of insolvent assets and successfully take the companies public in the form of stocks. The company became the first Korean securities company to sign an MOU to take over $300 million worth of non-performing loans in western China.
The company is also considering participating in the production of cultural content aimed at the Chinese market, which led Hyundai to set up a private equity fund targeted at that project, along with a fund for investing in real estate in China.
Hyundai Securities has been working on ways to enter financial markets in Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The company plans to set up an asset management firm in Kazakhstan as well as to invest 130 billion won in an apartment project in Mongolia after which it will sell the units to investors in Korea.
In July, the company bought a newly built residential building for 12.5 billion won, becoming the first Korean financial firm to buy real estate in Japan. The company set up a special purpose company to handle the deal. A Hyundai Securities official said the company has been following its strategy to find niche markets to make investments before any of its rivals in order to corner the market. The company expects these projects to bear fruit by the end of the year.
Hyundai Securities was set up in 1962 and its first overseas office was established in November 1987 in London, which was incorporated as Hyundai Securities Europe in 1992. The company set up its New York office in 1988, which became Hyundai Securities America in 1996. In April 1989, the company opened an office in Hong Kong, which became Hyundai Securities Asia in 1997. The company set up its Tokyo office in 1995 and later elevated it to the Tokyo Branch in 1997.
The company launched the Buy Korea Fund and in 1999 sales of the fund exceeded 30 trillion won.
President Kim Ji-wan said the company has, by every standard, achieved amazing results in the past few years. Such results can be attributed not only to the rapid restoration of the nation's economy from the financial crisis, but to the all-out efforts of the company's management and staff, he added.
The company's international division is doing its best to create continued prosperity for its customers in this rapidly changing economic environment characterized by globalization and the integration of national economies and ever-growing volumes of trade.
He said the division is the most competitive in many areas of international business, including brokerage, investment banking, M&A, foreign exchange and derivatives. Not content with the current level of success, the division will add to its overseas subsidiaries in London, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai by advancing into emerging markets such as Russia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. nw

The website of Hyundai Securities Co.

Hyundai Securities President Kim Ji-wan