Chairman Park Hyeon-joo of Mirae Asset Group. (Photo: Mirae Asset Group)

Marking one year since Mirae Asset Group Chairman Park Hyeon-joo became global investment strategy officer of the firm’s brokerage unit, Mirae Asset Daewoo, the brokerage’s overseas businesses reported robust earnings for the first half of the year.

According to an earnings report recently released by the brokerage, the combined net profit of Mirae Asset Daewoo’s overseas branches reached 82.7 billion won ($80 million) in the January-to-June period, up nearly 70 percent compared to the same period last year.

This is expected to contribute to the performance of Mirae Asset Group’s overall overseas business, with the firm and industry watchers projecting robust pretax operating profit of 130 billion won for the first half of the year, exceeding last year’s annual performance.

It will help Mirae Asset break its previous records and help profit for the first half of the year surpass last year’s annual record of 150 billion won, the firm said.

Mirae Asset said that the latest performance was significant, as it overcame a number of obstacles, including a probe by the Fair Trade Commission and the lackluster market weighed down by the Seoul-Tokyo trade dispute and US-China trade war. Mirae Asset has been expanding its presence in the global market by making successful investments and clinching deals in recent years.

In June, its asset management arm Mirae Asset Global Investments earned about 160 billion won in profit through the sale of Taunusanlage 8, a prime office building in Frankfurt, Germany.

Mirae Asset Daewoo has the most number of foreign branches among local brokerages and has been successfully pursuing a slew of investment banking deals overseas.

The Mirae Asset Group has done well exploring overseas market, so far turning away from the crowded domestic market. The group first purchased a large building in Pudong, Shanghai, which has now been renamed as the Mirae Asset Shanghai building, in 2006, to kick off its overseas operation.

The group followed with the takeover of the Titlist, top golfing products maker in the world and then last year, the group acquired a stake in DJI, a drone company in China, spreading its name around the world as a global investor.

The group has been boosting its overseas operation since its takeover of Daewoo Securities to merge with Mirae Asset to give birth to Mirae Asset Daewoo.

Mirae Asset sold the T8 Building in Frankfurt, Germany, for 520 billion won at a profit amounting to 160 billion won as the group bought it for 360 billion won in August 2017, just about two years ago.

The financial group has been engaged in a number of huge deals, backed up by its great amount of investment funds to solidify its foundation for global operation.

The group handles such replacement investment deals as the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas worth $95 million, the Amazon Logistics Center valued at $78 million and others in addition to a number of large investment deals including Cambridge House Building in London and the Center Building in Hong Kong.

This year, the group made an investment in Big Basket, an online marketplace company to kick off its investments aimed at the companies related to the 4th Industrial Revolution.

With these large deals as the backdrop, the group recently participated in the initial bidding for Asiana Airlines to emerge as a strong contender for the deal pitted against such bidders as Hyundai Industrial, Aekyung and KCGI.