Meritz Financial Group

Meritz Financial Group is a non-bank financial holding company whose subsidiaries include Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance, Meritz Securities, Meritz Capital and Meritz Alternative Investment Management.

In 2023 it brought the insurer and the brokerage under full ownership in what the market calls the 'One Meritz' structure, creating an internal value chain centred on corporate finance.

The company disclosed that in the first half of 2026 profit contribution came 63% from insurance, 32% from securities and 5% from capital and others, versus 67%/28% a year earlier, meaning the brokerage's share expanded.

Korea Investors Service noted in a July 2026 report that Meritz Fire holds an upper-middle position in the long-term protection insurance market with a three-year average return on assets of 4.1%.

Meritz Securities built its base in real-estate finance, structured products and corporate finance and has more recently expanded retail and asset management; the company said that in Q2 2026 corporate finance and net interest income fell on higher credit costs and funding costs while asset management and retail offset the decline.

Meritz Capital is corporate-finance oriented, with press reports indicating that project finance loans account for roughly 47.5% of its corporate finance assets. On a standalone basis, the holding company's revenue consists mostly of dividends from subsidiaries and brand-usage fees, a typical holding-company profile.

As of end-March 2026 the largest shareholder, chairman Cho Jung-ho, and related parties held 58.2% of the shares.

The absence of a bank or savings-bank licence, and therefore of a deposit funding base, has been flagged as a structural gap, which is part of the reason the company joined the bidding for the Acuon Capital and Acuon Savings Bank package.

On confirmed disclosures, 2025 operating profit was KRW 2,872.7bn and net profit attributable to owners KRW 2,300.4bn, versus 2024 figures of KRW 3,188.9bn and KRW 2,306.1bn, so operating profit fell while bottom-line profit held roughly flat.

In 2023 the company posted operating profit of KRW 2,933.5bn and owners' net profit of KRW 2,041.7bn, and in 2022 KRW 2,893.2bn and KRW 1,391.7bn; the large increase in the owners' share since 2022 coincides with the full-subsidiary restructuring that shrank non-controlling interests from KRW 3,598.0bn in 2022 to KRW 938.6bn in 2025.

Revenue declined from KRW 67,218.3bn in 2022 to KRW 58,558.4bn in 2023 and KRW 46,574.5bn in 2024, yet the operating margin rose from 4.3% to 5.0% and then 6.8%, illustrating how loosely top line and profitability are linked when securities valuation and disposal items dominate a financial company's revenue.

Quarterly, operating profit and owners' net profit went from KRW 949.7bn/KRW 725.1bn in Q2 2025 and KRW 862.3bn/KRW 654.7bn in Q3 to only KRW 338.9bn/KRW 310.7bn in Q4, before recovering to KRW 854.8bn/KRW 667.0bn in Q1 2026 and KRW 967.6bn/KRW 775.1bn in Q2 2026.

The Q4 2025 shrinkage reflects a quarter in which year-end cost recognition and asset-quality adjustments overlapped; Korea Investors Service said that classifying about KRW 1.2tn of Homeplus secured loans as substandard in 2025 helped push the group's consolidated substandard-or-below ratio to 6.4% at end-March 2026.

On the confirmed data provided, Q2 2026 was the strongest of the last five quarters on both operating and owners' net profit, and the four-quarter cumulative owners' net profit stands at KRW 2,407.4bn.

In a preliminary disclosure and conference call on 12 August 2026 the company reported first-half consolidated net profit of KRW 1,471.6bn (up 8.3% year on year) and first-half revenue of KRW 35,577.4bn, and explained that at the insurer first-half insurance profit fell 3.7% to KRW 697.5bn while investment profit rose 16.3% to KRW 703.1bn (preliminary figures).

Equity rose to KRW 11,261.2bn on a consolidated basis at end-2025 (KRW 10,322.6bn attributable to owners) against liabilities of KRW 124,196.8bn and a debt ratio of 1,102.9%, a metric that cannot be compared with manufacturers since it includes insurance and financial liabilities.

Operating cash flow remained negative at minus KRW 6,472.0bn in 2025 and minus KRW 3,918.2bn in 2024, a common pattern for financial firms where growth in loans and investment assets flows through operating activities.

The domestic non-life insurance cycle has been described as heading for a mild recovery in 2026 on the back of improving insurance profit.

A March 2026 sector report cited rate increases, tighter underwriting, the effects of fifth-generation indemnity insurance and managed-benefit rules, and a narrower auto insurance loss, while flagging that the second-quarter change to loss-ratio and expense-ratio guidelines could trigger contractual service margin adjustments and lower margin multiples.

Fifth-generation indemnity insurance went on sale at 16 insurers from 6 May 2026, splitting non-covered treatment into severe and non-severe categories with higher co-payments and lower limits for the latter.

On an August 2026 conference call the chief executive of Meritz Fire said that after manual therapy moved to managed benefits, claims per receipt fell from around KRW 130,000 to the KRW 40,000 range, suggesting the rule change is feeding through to loss ratios.

In securities, buoyant equity markets and higher turnover are lifting retail profitability, and the company itself pointed to retail growth and asset management results as first-half drivers. On the other side, real-estate finance remains a pressure point.

Credit analysts noted that Meritz Fire's project finance loan balance was about KRW 11.1tn as of Q1 2026, or 27% of investment assets, leaving it highly sensitive to the property cycle and interest rates.

In the capital-finance segment, tighter project finance regulation and funding cost burdens persist, while the Acuon auction drew Meritz Financial, Hanwha Life and Baikal Investment, reshaping the competitive map.

Announcing first-half results on 12 August 2026, the company said core competitiveness had strengthened through growth in new long-term health insurance sales at the insurer and retail expansion at the brokerage (preliminary basis). iM Securities, in an August 2026 report, forecast full-year 2026 net operating revenue of KRW 4,561.0bn, operating profit of KRW 3,354.0bn and net profit attributable to owners of KRW 2,495.0bn.

On capital return, the company said in November 2025 that it would maintain its policy of returning 50% of consolidated net profit for another three years covering 2026-2028, and its published materials explain that the mix between buybacks and cash dividends depends on comparing the return from buyback-and-cancellation with its cost of equity.

Of the KRW 700bn buyback trust signed in March 2026, 3,857,400 shares worth KRW 426.2bn had been acquired by June (60.89% execution) and about 5.46m shares worth KRW 607.2bn by end-July, a fast pace relative to the one-year contract term.

On portfolio strategy, the pending variable is the Acuon Capital and Acuon Savings Bank package: Meritz Financial, Hanwha Life and Baikal Investment took part in the 5 June 2026 final bidding, and the company said it would decide after due diligence.

Success would bring the group's first savings-bank licence and deposit funding base plus larger capital-finance assets, but also acquisition pricing, capital burden and approval procedures.

On Homeplus, after the Seoul Bankruptcy Court decided on 3 July 2026 to terminate rehabilitation, enforcement of collateral rights remains the key issue; on the August call the company said provisions and reserves on existing loans stay at about KRW 240bn with roughly KRW 14bn more expected for the new debtor-in-possession loan.

In indemnity insurance, optional discount riders and a conversion discount scheme for first- and second-generation policyholders are due to start in November 2026, so the scale of conversions could shift loss ratios and new business flows.