South Korean brokerage house Mirae Asset Daewoo Co. on Friday announced its third stock buyback this year, offering to buy 2.8 percent of its own shares to give greater traction to its stock rally.

The company will repurchase 15 million treasury shares worth 113.4 billion won ($95.2 million) through Oct. 30, according to its regulatory filing.

With the latest move, Mirae Asset would be buying back a total of 44 million shares, or roughly 8.3 percent of its own stock, this year. It had repurchased 13 million treasury shares in March and 16 million shares in June.

Mirae Asset shares rose 5.76 percent to close Friday at 7,890 won. Shares have more than doubled from their March lows and are now trading at pre-COVID-19 levels.

“We decided to execute our third share buyback to uphold our commitment to increasing shareholder value, as we deemed our current share price to be undervalued when considering our stable profit structure and differentiated financial stability,” said Jeon Kyung-nam, head of the business innovation division at Mirae Asset Daewoo. “We will continue carrying out share buybacks and other activities to protect our shareholders,” he added.

The country’s largest brokerage by market cap on the same day announced its plan to buy $300 million worth of new shares in its Hong Kong entity to raise its equity capital to $2.44 billion. As of end-June 2020, the Hong Kong unit had $2.14 billion in equity capital.

The recapitalization is to help the Hong Kong unit seek new investment opportunities and bolster its capabilities in trading, investment banking and brokerage, Mirae Asset said.

By Park In-hye and Kim Hyo-jin

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