I joined Capstone Asset Management in 2016 to establish and lead their global investment division. The company was founded in 2009 in Korea, formed by a group of real estate experts from the investment, development and management industries. At the time, Capstone’s total AUM (Assets Under Management) was worth around $1.4 billion and the company had no exposure to global real estate markets at all.
So, the main question on my mind was: how am I going to grow the division and expand into the global market?
I felt that I needed to understand how to approach creating the right strategies on a deeper level, and to learn how to assess and analyse the right options to use at Capstone. This was the reason that I chose to study at Oxford, and I joined the Oxford Diploma in Financial Strategy in 2017.
During the programme, I learnt various practical frameworks to help me identify the global market potential. By applying several market analysis frameworks that I had learnt, such as Porter’s five forces, PESTEL and Ansoff’s growth matrix, I could understand how large the global real estate market was, how fast it was growing and identify how other Korean investors and asset managers were performing. I was also able to identify the predicted growth trajectory of the market and how our competitors were preparing their corporate strategies to grow further.
By studying the diploma and applying my learnings immediately into my daily work, I was able to demonstrate that Capstone should continue to focus on expanding into global markets where more investment opportunities are expected. I concluded that it should develop its core competencies in the longer term whilst the market environment is favourable. As a result, I was able to rapidly grow our global investment division to great effect.
Since then, Capstone’s total AUM has grown remarkably and is now currently worth around $4.2 billion. Our global investment division has grown significantly over the past six years to $1.8 billion – constituting 44% of our total AUM. Our investment portfolios have become more diverse as a result and currently comprise of various regions in developed countries such as the United States, UK and Germany. Despite the impact of the pandemic, we expect to continue to grow our market coverage overseas.
Ultimately, the Diploma in Financial Strategy equipped me with the necessary tools to steer our global investment division in the right strategic direction and to grow our business for the better.
