Fueled by a stock market boom, domestic asset management companies saw first-quarter (January–March) revenue jump sharply. However, as business concentrated further in large managers, the share of firms in the red actually expanded.
On the 22nd, the Financial Supervisory Service said that as of the end of March this year, asset management companies' assets under management stood at 2,355.7 trillion won, up 166.7 trillion won (7.6%) from the end of last year.
Fund custody balances were 1,490.3 trillion won, up 119 trillion won (8.7%) from 1,371 trillion won at the end of the previous year. In particular, with the KOSPI rising and the ETF market expanding, public funds increased 96.1 trillion won (15.8%) to 705.5 trillion won. Private funds rose 3% from the end of the previous year.
Net income for the first quarter was 1.4664 trillion won, an increase of 699.5 billion won (91.1%) from the previous quarter. Compared with the same period a year earlier (466.1 billion won), it rose by more than 1 trillion won.
Operating profit was 1.3523 trillion won, up 474 billion won (54%) from the previous quarter and 945.6 billion won (232.5%) from a year earlier.
In particular, higher fee revenue drove operating profit. Fee revenue was 1.8931 trillion won, up 164.2 billion won (9.5%) from the previous quarter. Securities investment gains and losses came to 319.6 billion won, up 40.9 billion won (14.7%). Selling, general and administrative expenses fell 22.1% from the previous quarter to 911.8 billion won due to year-end bonus payments.
However, 192 out of all 511 asset management companies (37.6%) posted losses. The share of loss-making firms rose 5.3 percentage points from the previous quarter (32.3%).
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said, "In the first quarter of this year, asset management companies achieved the largest quarterly revenue since the fourth quarter of 2022, helped by increased fee revenue due to a rise in domestic stock indexes," but added, "The performance gap within the asset management industry widened, as seen in the higher share of loss-making firms during the quarter."