Shrinivas Khanolkar, head of products, marketing and corporate communications at Mirae Asset Investment Managers in India, speaks during the India-Korea Business Partnership Forum 2024 held at Yashoboomi, New Delhi, Friday. (Park Hae-mook/The Korea Herald)

NEW DELHI, India -- Korea’s leading asset manager Mirae Asset Global Investments has been rapidly expanding its presence in the Indian market, riding on the country’s strong “appetite for Korean businesses.”

Recognizing the country’s growth potential, the company was the first of its peers to enter the Indian market, setting up an office in Mumbai in 2006.

“When Mirae Asset came to India, it was a 100 percent foreign-owned equity,” Shrinivas Khanolkar, head of products, marketing and corporate communications at Mirae Asset Investment Managers in India, said during the India-Korea Business Partnership Forum 2024 held at Yashoboomi, New Delhi, Friday.

“After 16 years it is a household name because we are one of the top 10 financial companies in the country,” he said. “There is an appetite for Korean businesses in India.”

The asset manager's Indian subsidiary manages assets of over 30 trillion won ($21.3 billion) as of June. The feat comes less than three years after its AUM surpassed 16 trillion won in October 2021.

In 2022, the subsidiary even launched a unit in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates to tap into the growing Middle East market, seeing opportunity as Indians represent 35 percent of the city's population.

“(Over the recent years) the culture of India and how we do the payment processing, banking and investments have completely changed because now we have more mobile banking payments happening than actual banking payments,” he said.

He highlighted the estimate that India would have about 354 million households that would contribute to the growth of the country in 2030.

“We are a young population. The median age is 33 so there is a long way to go. The corporate tax rate is 22 percent, which is comparable and we still believe that we are on a lower regime of labor costs in the in the world."

Khanolkar further pointed out prominent sectors in India’s stock market.

Among sectors, the automobile industry would be an even more prominent business in India, considering the country has been seeing a premiumization of cars. The travel industry would flourish as well, as more Indians are willing to spend more on overseas trips. The wedding and education industries would sharply grow, too.

“We Indians would love to first secure the future of the child. Education is also a big segment in India,” he said.

To create synergy with the asset manager’s expansion in India, Mirae Asset Securities, a brokerage house under the group, also operates a unit there. When it launched its Indian unit in 2018, it was a first for a Korean brokerage firm.

For further expansion, the brokerage house has decided to acquire Sharekhan, a major Indian brokerage firm, at $370 million. The acquisition deal is expected to wrap up by the end of this year.

When embracing Sharekhan's portfolio, the number of retail accounts under the Mirae Asset Securities’ Indian subsidiary is expected to jump to 5 million, from 2 million as of October.

By Im Eun-byel (silverstar@heraldcorp.com)