President Ryu Sang-ho of Korea Investment and Securities Co. (True Friend) won the 23rd Dasan Financial Award for recording the largest first-half profit in 2013 amounting to 65.8 billion won in the industry, accounting for 68.7 percent of all profits in the industry.
Ryu hired new staff and kept the same number of branches this year while rival firms were firing staff and accepting honorary retirements to cut payrolls and even putting themselves up for sale in the worst cases. Ryu is also the longest serving CEO of a securities firm, leading the company for seven years since he took over the top position of the company in 2007 at age 47.
The CEO’s biggest achievements were introducing new earning sources and showing new growth models for securities firms by finding new growth engines while running Hantu as the top manager.
He introduced project financing and found new growth engines to diversify the company’s earnings, apart from the usual brokerage and asset management areas.
Financial sources said Hantu is the securities firm in Korea with the most widely diversified business areas, stable earnings structures, and largest income in 2011, 2012, and the first half of 2013 continuously. The company has been leading the main business areas of brokerage, asset management, and investment banking. Despite the slowdown sweeping the industry, Hantu has been able to expand its asset management commodities 19 percent YoY in the first half of 2013 when most of its rival firms suffered reductions in their financial commodities and transaction funds.
What also boosted Hantu’s earnings was advisory fees from real estate transactions amounting to 13.7 billion won in the first half of last year, up 43.8 percent YoY. The area is the operational territory for banks and insurance firms, but Hantu entered the area as a securities firm for the first time, showing that securities firms can do well in the area.
President Ryu did not limit his new business ventures to the domestic market, but also raided overseas market, starting with Vietnam, China, and Indonesia, engaged in such areas as a financial advisory for direct investments, mediating M&As, and others.
Ryu also plans to play a role in luring oil money to Korea through its ties with Islamic financial firms in Malaysia, as he is ready to mediate financial deals for big projects won by Korean builders in Middle East countries, which no Korean securities firms have attempted yet.
As the CEO of Hantu, Ryu has created a company full of loyal employees by ensuring that personnel matters are resolved based only on performance. When making personnel moves, the company skips the names of staff in personnel papers and looks only at performance records. He also often mingles with staff at drinking places.
Since his arrival at the company seven years ago, Hantu has hired 100 employees every year and no personnel reorganization has taken place yet, which also testifies to the excellence of Ryu’s management skills.
KIS was re-formed in June 2005 when the company was merged with Dongwon Securities. The previously named Korea Investment & Securities Co., Ltd. was Korea’s leading distributor of investment trust products, mainly those of its wholly owned subsidiary; while Dongwon Securities was one of Korea’s main securities brokerages. Both of these companies previously played important roles in the development of the Korean capital market and the Korean economy. KIS was a major institutional investor specializing in asset management and sales of Korean funds, while Dongwon Securities was a specialist in securities brokerage, investment banking, and derivatives trading.
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