Hanwha Asset Management, winner of Asia Asset Management’s 2026 Exchange-Traded Fund Award for Best Absolute Performing ETF of the Year in Asia-Pacific and Best Dividend ETF for Korea, is strengthening its ETF products to better meet the diverse needs of investors.
The company’s ETF investment strategies have continually evolved since the fund’s launch in 2009. In 2024, it rebranded its ETF offerings from ARIRANG to PLUS, reaffirming the company’s commitment to safeguard clients’ assets and deliver enhanced value to investment returns.
The company’s ETF business experienced significant growth over the past two years, notably its flagship PLUS K-Defense Industry ETF. The fund has become one of the largest ETFs in Korea, generating a nearly eightfold return since its launch in 2023, according to Choi Young-jin, chief marketing officer at Hanwha Asset Management.
First-mover advantage
“We are leaders in emerging sectors. Before the launch of our defence ETF, there were no ETFs tracking the Korean defence sector in Korea and globally,” Choi says in an interview with AAM. He noted that this first-mover advantage is a key factor that distinguishes the company from its competitors.
“Our goal is to identify potential winning sectors before they become widely recognised,” he says. “The PLUS K-Defense Industry ETF is an example. The fund enables investors to capitalise on the growth of global military and defence budgets.”
Another notable product is the PLUS High Dividend ETF, which registered a return of around 200% in 2025. Choi explains that the fund benefits from South Korea’s shareholder-friendly policies, which enable high-dividend, value-oriented stocks to distribute stable and attractive income streams.
In 2023, Hanwha Asset Management integrated pensions, ETFs, digital marketing, and direct fund sales platform PINE (Personal INvestment Enabler), into a cohesive organisation, centring its strategy around direct-to-customer financial services.
“The company paused new ETF launches for eight months during the integration process. While it was challenging, this period allowed us to reshape our ETF strategy and emerge stronger,” he explains. “We firmly believe that ETFs are not just trading tools; they are long-term wealth and retirement investment solutions.”
Hanwha Asset Management manages around 13 trillion won (US$8.8 billion) in ETF assets and aims to expand this to 100 trillion won within the next three years.
The company remains one of the top players in Korea’s highly competitive ETF market, which features around 30 ETF managers managing about 400 trillion won in ETF assets.
Exploring new opportunities
On investment opportunities, Choi notes that the company is closely monitoring developments stemming from shifting global geopolitical trends.
Investors are particularly paying attention to how the global economy has transitioned over the past 30 years from being predominantly US-centric to being characterised by strategic competition between the US and China, he says.
“We focus on four key areas: the arms race, technology race, energy race, and financial and monetary system competition – all driven by this strategic rivalry,” he says. “As an investor and asset manager, we analyse these macro benchmarks, and it’s important for us to stay aligned with this long-term global structural change.”
In response to these geopolitical and technological shifts, Choi explains that Hanwha Asset Management employs a three-pillar approach to seize opportunities and offer suitable investment products.
“First, we use tailored solutions to meet the real-time demands of investors through the PINE platform. Second, we identify investment themes and optimal timing through data validation,” he says.
“Third, we focus on product design to make investment concepts more understandable for investors,” he adds. “For example, when it comes to AI, we don’t simply present the AI story. Instead, we explore opportunities across infrastructure, services, robotics, energy, and supply chains. This approach not only enables us to capture emerging trends but also emphasises disciplined investing.”
Overseas listings
Hanwha Asset Management is taking steps to expand its PLUS ETF series internationally. In February 2025, the company listed the PLUS Korea Defense Industry Index ETF on the New York Stock Exchange.
“We’re exporting Korean strategies to global investors,” Choi says, adding that the company plans to list more ETFs across multiple markets this year. It, for example, completed the listing of the PLUS Korea Manufacturing Core Alliance Index ETF on the NYSE in May of this year.
This ETF primarily invests in strategically strong Korean manufacturing companies across sectors such as AI semiconductor, rechargeable battery, shipbuilding, defense, power grid and nuclear energy, and robotics and humanoid. Choi notes that the fund will attract global investors as Korean manufacturing fills the gaps created by global supply chain reconfiguration, friend-shoring, and rising demand for strategic industrial capacity.
Choi says the company is also planning to list ETFs in London, Frankfurt and Abu Dhabi.
Korea has significantly liberalised its ETF market this year by introducing completely active ETFs that do not require index linkage. Additionally, the country’s financial regulator has approved single-stock ETFs. Choi believes that these developments will usher in “a new wave of growth and represent a quantum leap for the industry”.
He urges the regulatory authority to continue advancing market liberalisation to accommodate more innovative products, such as single-stock inverse and leveraged ETFs, as well as digital asset ETFs.
Seoul-based Hanwha Asset Management has around US$87 billion of assets under management.
