Exploring Overseas Financial Investment Marketsy

KOFIA organizes a seminar to take stock of their strategies to make a foray overseas

The Korea Financial Investment Association (KOFIA) hosted an international seminar to take stock of financial investment firms' strategies to make a foray into foreign markets at the Korea Institute of Financial Investment (KIFI) in Seoul on Nov. 23. The seminar took place in celebration of the opening of the new KIFI structure, fitted with state-of-the-art educational facilities.
The speakers of Session I, titled "Boosting Korean financial investment companies' overseas business" were Shin Bo-sung, a department chief of Korea Capital Market Institute (KCMI),; Chung Hyung-jin, executive director of Goldman Sachs,; and Park Sang-soon, a partner of Boston Consulting. They spoke about Korean financial investment firms' desirable ways of exploring foreign markets and global investment banks' overseas business strategies.
The speakers of Session II, jointly presided over by the Irish Fund Industry Association (IFIA), included former Irish prime minister John Bruton,; and Gary Palmer, the IFIA's chief executive. They lectured on the future of the EU and Eurozone and asset management companies' strategies to make a foray into foreign markets.
Ex-Irish prime minister Bruton predicted that even though the final crisis, caused by debt problems in Europe, has been rapidly spreading across the world, the consequences will be not greater than feared earlier by fixing them through collaboration among countries. Ireland will overcome the financial crisis by capitalizing on expanded exports and the strong points of the fund service industry, the European country's key sector, he added.
KOFIA Chairman Hwang Kun-ho said, "The Korean financial investment industry's overseas exploration is essential, not an optional one so as to diversify its profit-taking portfolios and ramp up global competitiveness." He stressed the need for thorough advance preparations, expertise manpower development and water-tight localization strategies to successfully do business in foreign countries.
KCMI's Shin said the Korean financial investment industry, which has so far focused on the domestic business sector, is now required to explore foreign markets in the interests of both companies and investors.
As for overseas market exploration, he said, chances are high that the Korean industry can have more room for doing business in the less developed financial markets in Asia, compared to those of developed countries. Korean financial investment firms need to initially attach priority on brokerage & sales of Korean papers for foreign institutional investors before expanding its business environs to cover brokerage & sales of local papers, Shin said. In the corporate sector, Korea's focus needs to be on middle-cap markets, which are out of global investment banks' concern before expanding to large-cap markets, he added. nw

KOFIA Chairman Hwang Kun-ho speaks at an international seminar to take stock of financial investment firms' strategies to make a foray into foreign markets at the Korea Institute of Financial Investment (KIFI) in Seoul on Nov. 23.
Photo on courtesy of KOFIA

A view of the international seminar, hosted by KOFIA.
Photo on courtesy of KOFIA