증권사의 수익구조가 증권사 가치에 미치는 영향: 자산관리 업무를 중심으로

The aging population with low growth and low interest rates is fast-paced in Korea. In this situation, investors’ behavior is expected to be changed into the direction that the demand on risky assets increases and this will make the movement of funds into the capital market actively happen. Profitability of domestic securities firms has continued to worsen and experts point out that they need to move away from traditional brokeragebased business. Generally speaking, asset management business of securities firms is based on fee while other businesses are based on commission. Therefore, asset management service provides a more stable source of revenue for securities firms than other businesses. In these internal and external environment surrounding securities firms, if they strategically specialize and differentiate asset management services, It will provide benefits to both customers and themselves. However, it is true that the domestic securities firms have focused on simply selling funds or derivatives-linked securities rather than managing customers’ wealth as the real sense of asset management service. This study aims at understanding the importance of asset management service through a relationship between the various businesses of securities firms and their value. In general, the businesses of securities firms are classified as brokerage, asset management, investment banking, principal investment. Brokerage is the securities brokerage for customers, asset management means wrap accounts, trusts, and sales of financial products. Investment banking is securities underwriting and M&A advisory services, principal investment refers to directly trading of stocks, bonds, funds, and derivatives.The sample of this paper is domestic listed securities firms from 2010 until 2014. The first task is to disassemble the profit structure of four businesses as mentioned above and calculate the profit ratio (specialization) and market share of each business. After calculating these measures, this paper investigates the effects of them on securities firms’ value. This paper’s main results are as follows. First, only asset management unlike other businesses has consistently a positive impact on the firm value. This raises the need to activate asset management business in securities industry when considering the current situation that the market size and the profit ratio of this business is the smallest among other businesses. Second, when breaking down asset management business, sales business of funds or derivatives-linked securities shows a comparative advantage of specialization strategy, while customers’ wealth management service such as wrap, trusts enjoys a comparative advantage of market share maximization strategy in terms of firm value. The former implies that sales business requires the existence of funds or asset management affiliated company with good reputation. The existence of a reputable asset management affiliated company enables securities firms to easily specialize in sales business of funds. The latter means that customers’ wealth management business requires abundant capital to retain skilled advisory workforce and wide branch-network as key factors, and the abundant capital tends to increase the market share. Third, asset management business creates the highest synergy when combined with investment banking (IB) business among others. This is because IB is based on the corporate customers while asset management is based on retail customers. For example, structured products, private equity, corporate bonds designed in the process of IB and high-quality advisory services based on IB research can be provided for asset management customers in demand. Fourth, commercial bank-affiliated or group-affiliated securities firms enjoy a synergy in asset management business while independent securities firms do not. Commercial bank-affiliated securities firms can make the best use of bank’s wide branch-network for asset management customers. Group-affiliated securities firms can share highly reputable brand name value of group. In a nutshell, asset management is a key business to determine the value of securities firms under the recent environment. This is why securities firms need to cut back brokerage-based business and develope asset management business. Strategies of securities firms that this paper suggests to develope asset management business are as follows. First, securities firms need to reorganize their business to focus on asset management and pursue a comprehensive wealth management strategy beyond fund-sales or simple portfolio management through setting up a core customer base that meets their capabilities. Second, they need to provide customers with one-stop service through recently introduced branch-in-branch and enhance the professionalism and efficiency in terms of their own operations. Third, small independent securities firms need to differentiate their main customer base, pursue asset management strategy based on IT and low fee. When considering their insufficient capital and human resources, the core of their asset management strategy is a price competitiveness over large securities firms. For example, successful online asset management companies in the U.S., such as Betterment, Wealthfront, and Market Riders, deal only with ETF based on low commission strategy. In the institutional side, the compensation system in asset management business and the fee plan for advisory services need to be established to meet changing asset management environment. The compensation system in asset management should be in accordance with customers’ performance or satisfaction from service. Currently, advisory service of securities firms is free of charge. This is becoming an obstacle to the introduction of independent financial advisor (IFA), so that guidelines for setting up the appropriate advisory service fee are also required in Korean securities industry. Finally, assuming that asset management market expands in the near future, a conflict of interest problem may grow. This raises a need that the financial authority should complement the current regulatory framework to control the problem.