The Nasdaq Market Site promoting the launch of the Mirae Asset TIGER US Nasdaq-100 ETF, in New York's Times Square. (Mirae Asset Global Investments)

Mirae Asset Global Investments' assets exceeded 340 trillion won ($244.7 billion), with over 40 percent being managed on behalf of overseas clients, boasting extensive overseas footholds buoyed by its signature exchange-traded funds.

In 2003, the firm’s aggressive market expansion began with Mirae Asset Group founder and Chairman Park Hyeon-joo’s long-term vision to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with global investment banking groups like Goldman Sachs and Merrill.

“Over the past 20 years, Mirae Asset Global Investments has spared no effort to morph into a financial group representing South Korea since it tapped into the overseas market as the first Korean asset management company to do so,” a company official said.

Establishing its first overseas entity in Hong Kong in 2003, the company is now operating in 16 countries, including the United States, Vietnam, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, China, Japan, India, Colombia, and Australia. As of May, its overseas assets under management stood at 147 trillion won.

Mirae Asset’s forte in global business is its exchange-traded funds, which were introduced in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong. There are 585 global ETFs operated by Mirae Asset around the world as of the end of May, with a total net asset of 170 trillion won. That is currently larger than the entire Korean ETF market, valued at about 150 trillion won.

Since 2006 when it first launched TIGER ETF, which provides a full spectrum of original products ranging from regional and global to sector and thematic strategies, Mirae Asset has expanded the range of choices for investors with various ETFs such as the TIGER US Nasdaq 100 ETF, which is the first in Korea to track the US Nasdaq 100 index.

While taking the lead in the development of innovative growth theme ETFs, such as the Chat GPT ETF, the firm developed Korea’s first ETF using strip bond, a type of bond where both the principal and regular coupon payments are sold separately and established the ETF lineup with the largest monthly dividend in the country.

A series of takeover deals helped Mirae Asset become a global ETF operator including Canada’s Horizons ETFs in 2011, US Global X in 2018 and Australia’s ETF Securities in 2022. ETF Securities is the first case in which a Korean asset management company acquired an overseas ETF management company with profits earned overseas.

Last year, it acquired Stockspot, an Australian robo-adviser specialist management company. Mirae Asset plans to enter the financial market by incorporating AI-based services through the acquisition.

In recognition of such an endeavor, the Academy of International Business selected Mirae Asset founder to grant the International Executive of the Year Award this year.

Park will be the second Korean businessman to receive the award, following the late SK Group Chairman Chey Jong-hyun's winning in 1995. The chairman will deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of Academy of International Business’s event "AIB 2024 Seoul" slated for July 3.