Mirae Asset Securities plans to acquire all issued shares of Sanko Securities, a subsidiary of Japan's Okasan Securities Group, for about 5 billion yen through a United States intermediate holding company, with board approval and an announcement expected on October 29.
Mirae Asset Securities plans to enter the Japanese stock trading market by acquiring Sanko Securities, a subsidiary of Japan's Okasan Securities Group, for about 5 billion yen, according to Nikkei reporting carried by Aju Press on October 29. The deal would be carried out through Mirae Asset's intermediate holding company in the United States, targeting all issued shares of Sanko, with the acquisition plan to be announced following approval from both companies' boards and completion targeted by March 2027, the end of the 2026 fiscal year.
Sanko is a proprietary trading firm based in Tokyo's Chuo Ward, trading securities with its own capital, and has focused on that business since transferring its retail customer business to another Okasan group company in May. As of March 2026 it reported net assets of about 4.6 billion yen and a net profit of 48 million yen. Mirae Asset is expected to retain Sanko's existing workforce and operations, and through the purchase it would secure registration as a Type I Financial Instruments Business Operator in Japan, allowing it to trade and underwrite stocks and bonds. The plan is to expand in stages from proprietary trading into retail operations, including selling exchange-traded funds from Mirae Asset's United States subsidiary Global X to Okasan customers.
The move would be Mirae Asset's first entry into Japan since it withdrew in the mid-2010s. Its predecessor Daewoo Securities, and Samsung Securities, entered and left the Japanese market repeatedly, and Nikkei noted that foreign securities firms are again looking at Japan as its stock market booms, while smaller Japanese brokerages face management succession problems and an ageing customer base.
The yen price is the figure the reporting agrees on, and this piece reports it in yen only for a reason. Two Aju Press reports on the same plan give converted figures that do not match each other or the yen amount: one puts the value at about 42.5 million dollars, the other at about 425 million won, while a third outlet gives about 31.7 million dollars. The reports do agree on the core facts used here: the target, the full stake, the United States vehicle, Sanko's March 2026 net assets and profit, and the licence that comes with the purchase. The deal's status also needs stating plainly: it is a reported plan awaiting board approval and a formal announcement, not a completed acquisition, and an earlier disclosure in September had described a Japanese acquisition as under review with nothing decided.
For Mirae Asset, the licence is the point. Buying an existing brokerage with its registration and workforce avoids building a Japanese securities business from scratch, and chairman Park Hyun-joo had signalled on October 27 that an announcement involving a Japanese securities firm would come on October 29. The company has also said it is pursuing a financial-firm acquisition in mainland China that could be completed within the year, as part of a strategy of buying into economies larger than South Korea's.
The next step is the formal announcement after the October 29 board meetings, which should confirm the price, the timetable and whether the staged move into retail business for Japanese customers proceeds as reported.