Korea Investment and Securities Co. (KIS) set up an investment banking group under its wing, naming Kim Seong-hwan, project finance headquarters manager, to head the group on Jan. 1, 2016.

The new unit of KIS has been in charge of the corporate finance headquarters, the project financing headquarters and the retirement finance headquarters of KIS to cater to corporate customers as its main business, the company said recently.

KIS has been regarded as one of the strongest IB firms in Korea. The company is involved in the issuance of 12.182 trillion won worth of bonds to lead the industry, while its IPO handling also tops the sector in Korea, taking care of IPOs for Sewha MC, NS Shopping and AJ Network, among others, to secure the top place in the League Table.

Officials of KIS said the earnings from the IPO business came to 70.9 billion won as of the end of the third quarter, 2015, compared to 52.5 billion won in the same period last year.

The establishment of IB Group shows that the company will go full speed to strengthen investment banking. IB sources said KIS wants to really go after the investment banking business after failing to take over KDB Daewoo Securities under its vision to be a top investment bank in Asia by 2020.

New head of the IB Group, Kim is a project financing specialist handling the investment banking sector since he first joined the securities industry in 2000 after graduating from the Korea University. He was regarded as the first to introduce investment banking business into the securities industry in Korea.

In the personnel reshuffle following the establishment of the IB Group, Vice President Chung Il-moon has been named to head the Individual Customers Group while Vice President Lim Choon-soo will continue to take charge of the Global Institutional Sales Group, all under the leadership of President Ryu Sang-ho.

Korea Investment & Securities Co., Ltd. (KIS) was re-formed in June 2005 through the merger of the former Korea Investment & Securities Co. (KITC) with Dongwon Securities. Both companies had played pivotal roles in driving the growth of the Korean securities market.

The merger has allowed KIS to develop a well-balanced revenue structure consisting of asset management, securities brokerage, corporate financing and equity trading, which is unlike the brokerage fee-dominated revenue structure of most domestic securities companies. The new KIS was able to post a stunning 729.3 billion won profit in the financial year to March 2006, a record in the industry, by taking advantage of the economies of scale that enabled the new entity to rapidly gain momentum for enhanced performance.

The key business areas of KIS are investment banking and the distribution of fund products. In addition to its securities brokerage operations, it has already become the leading player in many areas of investment banking in Korea, such as IPO issuances and project financing, while the assets of fund management products sold exceed US$20 billion.

Leveraging its industry-leading experts and abundant experience, KIS offers comprehensive financial services covering the full spectrum of corporate financing from the fostering of small and medium sized enterprises to the issuance of stocks, bonds, off-shore securities, and asset-backed securities (ABS).

KIS is rapidly emerging as a leader in the financial services market in Korea by offering a comprehensive range of financial services, and it has begun the first steps to developing as a major financial services company in Asia with new business activities in China and Vietnam.