Shinhan Investment Corp., a member of South Korea’s Shinhan Financial Group, inaugurated Wednesday a securities firm in Ho Chi Minh City, as part of its plan to secure new growth globally.

Shinhan Securities Vietnam was established less than a month after the Seoul-based securities brokerage and investment banking company acquired a 100 percent stake in a local stock firm.

It has a charter capital of eight billion won (US$6.47 million) and is expected to contribute to such businesses as investment banking, initial public offering, and mergers and acquisitions of Shinhan Financial Group.

Shinhan Financial Investment Corp. President Kang Dae-Suk said Vietnam is a potential market, adding that Shinhan Bank will support Shinhan Securities Vietnam in its business expansion and growth plan in the Southeast Asian country.

Vietnam also plays a very important role in the initial stage of Shinhan Financial Investment’s plan to penetrate the Southeast Asian region, he added.

In July 2015, Shinhan Investment Corporation got approval from Vietnam’s State Securities Commission to buy the entire stake of Ho Chi Minh City-based Nam An Securities.

The transaction saw seven individual shareholders of the Vietnamese firm, whose equity was some VND25.2 trillion ($1.16 billion) as of the end of 2014, transfer 14 million shares to the South Korean investor.

Vietnam used to set a foreign ownership cap of 49 percent, but the ceiling was lifted for some firms starting September 2015.

The acquisition of Nam An Securities was therefore seen as the first case in which a foreign investor is allowed to buy the entire stake of a Vietnamese entity.

Upon the transaction, Nam An Securities was then the second 100 percent foreign-owned stock firm in Vietnam, besides Thailand’s Maybank Kim Eng Securities.

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