Chairman Park Hyun-joo of Mirae Asset Management said he will try to build a financial juggernaut in Korea, following business models provided by late business tycoons Chairman Lee Byung-chull and Chairman Chung Ju-yung.
They had impossible dreams and achieved them with steely determination. He would like to do the same, he said at a media session after Mirae Asset Management was named as the priority bidder in an open bidding for KDB Daewoo Securities Co. on Dec. 28, 2015. Park had his company ante up 8 trillion won to win the bidding.
There were around 100 reporters at the briefing. It was the first media session that Park had in eight years, making it a significant event.
He said the impossible dreams should be backed up with a vision on how to go about achieving them, putting everything his employees have on the table. “You have to believe in the power of thinking and idealization and as time passes. You will have bigger dreams and prove that they can be achieved as time passes,” the chairman said.
He said he would like to change the atmosphere that dominates the domestic business community, which is filled with a fear to challenge and make new investments as the country needs new investments now more that ever due to its low growth and the aging population.
Investment is the only means to take care of low growth and demographic dilemma, by boosting domestic spending and stagnant exports, among other problems that society is faced with. Park said he took over the securities firm in a bid to expand domestic investment.
The chairman also said he thought about taking over the securities firm to make contributions to senior citizens’ wellbeing to prepare for their retired lives. He pointed out that only 25 percent of the financial funds are being invested at home compared to 70 percent in the U.S. and 60 percent in Japan. We need to expand investments in the financial sector by making heavy investments in real estate as a move to further diversify the investments, he said.
He added that Mirae Asset Management will have access to Daewoo Securities’s wide overseas network and can pick up excellent investment targets for its customers so that they can make profits.
Its not just “one plus one,” he said in talking about the synergy from the takeover of the securities firm to his group’s operation, but can be 2, 3 and 4 even, he stressed in discussing his ambitious plan to make use of the new addition to his business operation.
“It’s a fantastic merger between the asset management capacity of Mirae Asset and superb R&D and investment banking know-how of KDB Daewoo Securities, which is expected to create a tremendous synergy,” he said, adding that he was willing to bid even higher to win the bidding war, taking into account so much synergy from the integration of the two firms’ capacities.
He said he is thinking about naming the new financial company Mirae Asset Daewoo Securities Co. to honor the history of the Korean securities industry in which Daewoo Securities has a big place.
He also assured the employees of Daewoo Securities that no personnel will be left behind, saying that Nomura Securities of Japan has 26,000 employees, far outnumbering 4,700 that the Korean securities firm has. “We would need more people even after the merger of the two companies to catch up with the Japanese securities firm,” he said.
Park also said he is in the middle of talks to take over a foreign asset management firm to strengthen the operation of KDB Asset Management, which will come with Daewoo Securities, by strengthening the hedge fund operation of the new affiliate to supply mid-level risk and profit financial products.
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