This study investigated one of the contemporary issues in the Korean capital market and two hypotheses of concern were tested on the financial determinants of profitability for the firms belonging to the Korean chaebols during the era of the post-global financial turmoil. The first hypothesis applying conditional quantile regression (CQR) estimation provided the evidence that leverage ratio, fixed asset utilization, and foreign ownership among the nine quantitative explanatory variables, had overall statistical significance relative to the book-valued profitability measure, while additional variables such as a firm's size, fixed and a proxy for the type of exchange market showed their strong impacts on the market-valued profitability indicator. Concerning the formulated 'extended' DuPont system, only two components of EBITDAEBIT and EMULTIPLIER revealed their prominent influence on ROE (Return on Equity) over the two tested periods (the years 2008 and 2012).