South Korea’s Meritz Securities said Tuesday that its annual net profit surged 22.1 percent to a record high last year, amid local securities firms’ continuing struggle to survive competition with giant investment banks.

The firm said its 2018 net income amounted to 433.8 billion won ($388.4 million) compared with 355.2 billion won a year earlier. Its operating profit jumped 20 percent to 532.3 billion won, while net operating income rose 21.9 percent to 1.3 trillion won. 

“Despite intensifying competition with giant investment banks, we were able to show a stellar performance in corporate and investment banking along with areas concerning structured finance,” an official at the firm said.

For the fourth quarter of last year, the firm posted net profit of 114.2 billion won, up 32 percent on-year.

Several private securities firms have expressed worries over the rising dominance of mega-sized investment banks in the market, after financial authorities started backing such banks in 2011 in an effort to create the so-called “Korean version of Goldman Sachs.”

By Jung Min-kyung (mkjung@heraldcorp.com)