Samsung Financial Group to open joint office in Japan; Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance returns after eight years

【Financial News, Tokyo and Seoul—Special Correspondent Seo Hyejin and Reporter Hong Yeji】Samsung Financial Group will open a joint office in Tokyo, Japan, bringing together four affiliates in life insurance, non-life insurance, securities and asset management. Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Securities Co., Ltd. will consolidate their existing office space, while Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance will return in the first half of next year after an eight-year absence. Samsung Asset Management is also preparing to join. The move is part of Samsung Financial Group’s effort to step up local research into Japan’s investment market and financial needs related to aging as it seeks new sources of overseas growth.
According to financial industry sources on the 27th, Samsung Financial Group will hold a reception in Iidabashi, Tokyo, on the 9th of next month to mark the opening of its joint office. It plans to bring the financial affiliates’ offices together on one floor of a building also occupied by Samsung Electronics and strengthen its network with local financial firms.
The plan is to consolidate the offices of Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Securities Co., Ltd. as they relocate, with the other affiliates joining in sequence. “It appears the space was rearranged because the affiliates can generate synergies through exchanges of local market information, among other things,” a Samsung Securities Co., Ltd. official said.
Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance plans to open a Tokyo office in the first half of next year. It will be returning after about eight years, having entered Japan in 1994 and withdrawn in 2019. Samsung Asset Management is also considering opening an office next year.
The areas Samsung Financial Group is focusing on in Japan are alternative investments and changes in financial demand resulting from an aging population. Samsung Securities Co., Ltd. is studying investment trends through exchanges with local securities firms and benchmarking their wealth management businesses.
Samsung Life Insurance also exchanges information on how Japanese life insurers have adapted their businesses and product structures to an aging population. It draws on local examples for domestic product development, among other things. Samsung Securities Co., Ltd. is likewise focusing its research on the wealth management strategies of Japanese financial firms, where population aging began earlier than in Korea.
This also aligns with Samsung Financial Group’s strategy of broadening its sources of revenue overseas. At its earnings presentation last August, Samsung Life Insurance said it would seek merger and acquisition (M&A) opportunities in Asia and the United States, among other markets, and gradually expand alternative investments.
Samsung Group’s efforts to strengthen its presence in Japan extend beyond finance to industrial research and technology development. Samsung Global Research (SGR) recently opened a Tokyo office, its second overseas base after Beijing, China. It researches Japan’s economy and industries, markets and consumers, as well as society and policy.
On the 8th of last month, Samsung Electronics opened the Advanced Package Lab (APL), a research facility for advanced semiconductor packaging, in Yokohama. Following technological cooperation with Japanese materials, components and equipment companies, the financial affiliates are also establishing a base to secure local investment opportunities and experience in responding to an aging population.
[email protected] Seo Hyejin Reporter