KB Securities
Like South Korea’s economy, KB Financial Group has a knack for coming through a crisis looking relatively unscathed.
In the first nine months of 2022, it reported a 19% year-on-year rise in net interest income to W8.3 trillion ($6.2 billion), with profits rising 6.3% to W4 trillion. Return on equity jumped to 12.11%, from 11.85% a year ago.
KB Securities, the group’s investment banking arm, also held its own, leading the way in arranging initial and secondary stock offerings. That included the highly coveted $10.8 billion-equivalent IPO of LG Energy Solution, an electric vehicle battery maker, in January 2022. KB Securities was a left lead bank along with Morgan Stanley.
The mega-deal attracted strong demand from institutional and retail investors, thanks in part to KB’s many relationships.
In debt capital markets, too, KB Securities retained a top spot in the domestic market.
For the first nine months of 2022, KB Securities’ investment banking operations produced net fees and commission income of W326.7 billion, up 20.3% year on year. This performance was all the more impressive considering that fees and commission income from other business lines, such as brokerage and financial products, fell across the same periods.
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