Industry leader Mirage Asset Daewoo Co. and online day trading-focused Kiwoom Securities finished the third quarter as big winners all thanks to retail stock fad.

Kiwoom Securities disclosed on Thursday it earned 355.5 billion won ($318.8 million) in operating profit on a consolidated basis during the July to September period, jumping more than four-fold from the same period a year ago and 13.2 percent from the previous quarter.

Net income climbed four-fold on year and 19 percent on quarter to 263.4 billion won with revenue up 73.8 percent on year and 39.6 percent on quarter to 1.2 trillion won.

It broke the highest operating profit and net profit records it had achieved just a quarter ago at 314 billion won and 219.9 billion won, respectively.

As of 10:07 a.m. on Friday, shares of Kiwoom Securities fell 1.78 percent to 110,500 won.

The brokerage house attributed the strong earnings to the robust gains in retail business led by frenzied individual investment following the foreign exit amid Covid-19 market volatility.

Kiwoom logged more than 19.5 trillion won in daily turnover for domestic stocks in the third quarter, surpassing the all-time high record of 16.8 trillion won in the first quarter.

The number of new accounts the company opened from July to September surpassed 940,000, bringing the total number to 2.4 million. Its investment banking wholesale division also grew 28 percent in the first nine months from last year despite the Covid-19 setback, the company said.

From January to September, its consolidated operating profit totaled 679.8 billion won and net income 492.8 billion won, already outstripping last year’s annual operating profit of 473.7 billion won and net income of 362.8 billion won.

Mirae Asset Daewoo also announced Thursday that its consolidated operating profit soared 71.6 percent from a year-ago period to 294.2 billion won in the third quarter.

Revenue fell 35.7 percent to 2.56 trillion won, but net profit gained 67.7 percent to 231 billion won.

Mirae Asset Daewoo stocks fell 0.64 percent to 9,380 won on Friday morning.

The company said it recorded the highest profits from brokerage and overseas businesses. It raked in 232.4 billion won net sale gains from brokerage business, up 179.4 percent from last year, with fee income from overseas stock transactions up 160.1 percent to 44.8 billion won.

Overseas operations delivered 71.1 billion won worth pretax net income, up 94.3 percent from the previous year and surpassing the annual record of 170.9 billion won in 2019.

Income from investment operations rose 12.7 percent to 171.2 billion won, and profit from selling financial products increased 18.5 percent to 57.1 billion won. Investment banking business, however, posted a 22.7 percent on-year decrease in profit to 66.2 billion won.

By Choi Mira

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