Daewoo, Samsung cement top posts in securities market

Daewoo Securities and Samsung Securities increased their dominance in the domestic market with sharp rises in profits last year.

Operating profits of the Samsung Securities and Daewoo Securities in the three last quarters of 2010 made 37.63 percent of total raised in the industry, the Korea Exchange said Wednesday.

Daewoo topped the list by raising an operating profit of 269.5 billion won followed by Samsung with 245.7 billion won.

Woori Investment & Securities, the No. 3 of 2009, dropped off from its position after its operating profit declined by 397 percent in the same period. The massive cut in profit is attributed to the write-offs from its investments in construction projects and take up of assets on failed underwriting projects. Woori’s operating profit for the last three quarters stood at 105.5 billion won.

“Customers prefer to go to bigger brokerages for their wrap accounts and the popularity of such products work against the smaller players,” Lim Seung-joo, an analyst at Kyobo Securities said.

Wrap accounts are individually tailored equity portfolios securities companies manage for their customers.

Hyundai Securities raised operating profit of 171.6 billion won. The figure for Mirae Asset, Kiwoom Securities and Tong Yang Securities are 135 billion won, 106.8 billion won and 17.8 billion won respectively.

“The increased liquidity in the equity market expected with continued inflow of capital from safe-assets will make the top players even stronger,” Chung Kil-won, an analyst at Daewoo said.

By Cynthia J. Kim (cynthiak@heraldcorp.com)