What a year it has been for NH Investment & Securities, under chair and chief executive Jeong Young-Chae. The firm worked on $3.1 billion of apportioned ECM, split across 10 deals. That put it above Citi and Goldman Sachs in the domestic market, and well above its local rival Korea Investment & Securities, which won this award last year.
NH I&S and Korea I&S are the titans of Korea’s securities industry, fighting hard for deal mandates and each making a strong argument for their prominence over the other. But this year, NH I&S managed to bag several deals that its rival missed out on.
These included a $1.14 billion block sale in Hyundai Heavy Industries, closed in March. NH I&S managed to win the only lead manager slot on that deal, leaving Korea I&S, Mirae Asset Daewoo, Hana Financial Investment, KB Securities, Shinhan Investment Corp and HI Investment & Securities to share the co-manager title.
Among other deals, NH I&S worked on a $230.1 million follow-on in Hyundai Steel, which it managed with JPMorgan; a $212 million sale of shares in Korea Aerospace Industries, alongside Citi; and a handful of smaller listings and block sales that NH I&S managed on its own.
But NH I&S and Korea I&S proved they are not bitter rivals. They worked together with equal billing on a $1.32 billion follow-on sale in shares of Samsung Heavy Industries in April, a transaction that featured a who’s who of Korea’s capital markets community.
It is too soon to say how much these deals will boost the firm’s profits across 2018, but it is clear that NH I&S is on the right track. The firm, which employs 2,863 people, generated a net income of W349.6 billion ($314 million) in 2017, a startling 48% increase from the previous year.
These numbers tell the story of a firm that is smart, ambitious and savvy. But Asiamoney can now add another adjective to that list: award-winning.