Just days after it inked a $2 billion deal to take over a bigger rival, Mirae Asset Securities is looking at another acquisition target. 

The brokerage unit of Mirae Asset Financial Group is exploring a takeover of Hyundai Securities, Korea’s fourth-largest securities firm with 3.2 trillion won ($2.76 billion) in assets, it said.   

Behind Mirae Asset’s seemingly relentless push for expansion is its charismatic boss Park Hyeon-joo who harbors an ambition to grow his Korean empire to be Asia’s top investment bank.   

 

In a telephone interview with The Herald Business, a sister paper of The Korea Herald, the tycoon revealed his insatiable hunger for growth.

“It’s about time that Korea sees the rise of a homegrown giant in the brokerage sector,” said Park, who has been overseas since late last year. He was set to return to Seoul as early as late Tuesday, cutting short his trip to major overseas markets originally planned to last until mid-April.

“We’re considering an additional acquisition,” he said, without elaboration.

In a filing in Seoul on Tuesday, Mirae Asset Securities said it was considering an investment proposal from LK Investment Partners, one of the six suitors for the 22.56 percent stake in Hyundai Securities being sold by Hyundai Group.

The filing came in response to local reports that Mirae Asset was considering a 500 billion won investment in LK, a Seoul-based fledgling private equity fund, to acquire the Hyundai unit. The deadline for a final offer for Hyundai Securities is Friday. 

If Mirae Asset decides to join the race, it will face the same contenders from last year’s race for KDB Daewoo Securities -- KB Financial Group and Korea Investment Holdings. Mirae Asset won the race and signed a contract last Friday to buy a 43 percent stake in KDB Daewoo and all of KDB Asset Management for a combined 2.38 trillion won.

If Mirae Asset comes on top once again, it will take Park one step closer to realizing his goal of bolstering his group’s assets to 10 trillion won, laid out in his New Year’s remarks earlier this year with a time line of 2020.

Mirae Asset, with the purchase of KDB Daewoo, has assets of 5.7 trillion won, the largest in the local brokerage sector. Hyundai Securities, if bought, would push that further to over 8 trillion won.

In a press conference held after having been chosen as a preferred bidder for KDB Daewoo last year, Park stressed that a financial investment company’s strength inherently hinges on its assets size and that 10 trillion won in assets does not suffice for his long-term goal of growing Mirae Asset into Asia’s leading investment bank.

“I am still thirsty for deals,” he said.

The tycoon, on other occasions, has revealed that his role model is Japan’s Nomura, which grew to be the region’s leading financial institution through the acquisition of the now-defunct Lehman Brothers’ Asia-Pacific operations amid the 2008 crisis.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)