In 1869, Marcus Goldman, a German-Jewish immigrant, opened a small shop in a cramped basement in Manhattan, New York, trading promissory notes. Every morning, Goldman visited jewelers and leather merchants to buy their IOUs. It was a form of commercial paper brokerage—buying promissory notes cheaply from back-alley merchants struggling with cash flow, adding a commission, and reselling them to banks. The business later became Goldman Sachs when his son-in-law Samuel Sachs joined him. More than 150 years after its founding, Goldman Sachs now wields enormous influence over global capital markets. It has become synonymous with Wall Street investment banking (IB), leading mega-deal mergers and acquisitions (M&A), initial public offerings (IPOs), and principal investments (PI).
Korea's stock market is sometimes called a "rain-fed rice paddy" because, like a field that depends solely on rainfall, it fluctuates with foreign capital flows and global variables. The earnings of Korean securities firms likewise rely on brokerage commissions and real estate project financing (PF)—a classic rain-fed structure. To break free from this dependence, the Korean stock market has long dreamed of producing a "Korean Goldman Sachs." Financial regulators and securities firm CEOs share this aspiration. Yet the reality is that Korean securities firms lack both the size and capability to compete with global IBs.
A meaningful milestone has now been set in the domestic market. Mirae Asset Securities became the first Korean securities firm to post quarterly net profit of 1 trillion won. Going beyond domestic brokerage, Mirae Asset Securities made early investments in innovative global firms such as SpaceX and delivered balanced results in global wealth management (WM). The achievement follows last year's designation, alongside Korea Investment & Securities, as a comprehensive financial investment business operator with equity capital exceeding 8 trillion won—a step that brought the firm closer to the Korean Goldman Sachs model.
The recent sharp rise in the KOSPI has driven outward growth in the market. But it is still too early to speak of genuine structural improvement. For Korea's stock market to advance to the next level, investment banks must play a key role—taking on high risks and making long-term investments in cutting-edge industries such as artificial intelligence (AI). That is the direction a Korean Goldman Sachs must pursue, and the path by which Korea's stock market can escape its rain-fed fate.
