President Kim Won-kyu of NH Investment and Securities Co.

President Kim Won-kyu of NH Investment and Securities Co. has been retained to serve another year by the board of directors at its meeting held on March 8 at the company’s head office in Yeouido, Seoul. Kim’s term has been extended to March 1, 2018, the company said. 

In the meantime, NHIS paid 900 billion won for the Loreal building in the Ecowest Office Complex of northern Paris, where the famous French cosmetics firm will rent offices. It represents the biggest overseas real estate investment for a Korean firm in recent years. The company expects to earn 7 to 8 percent per year in rental income from the two buildings in the complex.

“In the past two years, I focused on stabilization of the company’s operation and strengthen the model for the investment banking, but I will turn to building a foundation for stable earnings for the wealth management sector and seek growth engines in the extended period of my office term,” Kim said as he was named to serve another term.

He has been given credit for NHIS’s smooth sailing, for which was born of the merger of two securities firms, despite the tough conditions the new integrated securities firm faced as it took the first step in the business. Kim continued, saying that he will work hard to see that every sector of NHIS do well so that synergy can be maximized with the financial and economic groups under the National Agricultural Cooperatives Federation (NACF). He said the investment banking operation should be able handle large global projects. Eventually it should be a cash cow for the company, he said. 

Kim is a 30-year veteran in the securities business, having joined NH Securities in 1985 as a clerk. He moved to Woori Securities Co. to take over as the CEO in 2013, but moved back to NHIS to become the first president of what is now the biggest securities firm in the country born out of the merger of Woori Securities and NH Securities in 2014.

He holds the distinction of being promoted to CEO of the company he started working with as a clerk. He also holds the record for being the youngest branch manager in the company’s history when he was promoted to head the Pohang branch, in Pohang, South Gyeongsang Province in 1996. He was also the manager of Gangnam Regional Headquarters in the  Gangnam Ward of Seoul, one of the richest sections of the capital. He has been known for forging close personal ties with just about every employee of the company, not bound by regulations and protocols. 

In 2015, the initial year of the merged company’s operation, the company logged record profits. In the following year the company proved to be a reliable source of income for the group.

The NHIS is said to be trying to buy another building in the office building complex in Paris and will soon have talks with its owner to finalize the Ecowest deal. According to reports, NHIS will pay 360 billion won in cash and the balance will be financed through financial institutions.

The company is also considering setting up a private equity fund for individual investors to partake in the investment in the Paris real estate deal. Ecowest has two eight-storey buildings with 58,000 square meters in space each, which will be leased to the Loreal cosmetics company when it is completed in the 2nd quarter of this year. Real estate business sources said NHIS has made a sound investment in the Ecowest complex with Loreal Cosmetics, the tenant, being the most popular cosmetics brand globally, expected to have no problems paying its rent on time, making it a steady source of income for the securities firm. 

More Korean securities firms may follow the example set by NHIS in Paris.

NH Investment & Securities is also seeking to push through various overseas projects to diversify income sources in IB. Recently the company raised $320 million from Korean insurers and other institutional investors to lead a syndicated loan to Newark Energy Center’s power plant project in New Jersey.

A view of the Ecowest Complex in Paris, which NH Investment and Securities purchased recently for  about 900 billion won.(Photos: NHIS)