Revenue and profit both hit new highs. What enables China Merchants Securities to maintain a steady growth trajectory?

Ask AI · In an industry recovery backdrop, what is the core competitive advantage behind the company’s steady growth?

Produced by | China Visiting Network

Reviewed by | Li Xiaoyan

As the A-share market gradually moves out of the cyclical low point in 2025, leading securities firms are all entering a period of earnings recovery. CICC Securities, with an annual report showing year-over-year growth in both revenue and profit, demonstrates strong recovery momentum and a solid development foundation. Full-year operating revenue reached 24.97B yuan, up 19.53%; attributable net profit reached 12.35B yuan, up 18.91%. Both hit historical highs, and the weighted ROE rose to 9.94%, with core profitability indicators improving across the board. These results not only reflect growth that rides the market recovery tailwind, but also point to the company’s long-term accumulation in wealth management, institutional services, technology enablement, and risk control—marking that CICC Securities is shifting from cyclical repair to a stable new stage of high-quality development.

As CICC Securities’ core growth engine, wealth management and institutional business achieved leapfrog development in 2025. Full-year revenue reached 13.83B yuan, up 35.10% year over year, accounting for more than 55% of total revenue and becoming the company’s most stable “base.” Behind this performance is the payoff from years of deep cultivation in retail and institutional client segments and the push for digital transformation.

Client and asset scales expand in tandem, highlighting a strong client base. By year-end, the number of normal trading clients exceeded 20.97 million, up 8.67%; custody client assets reached 5.29 trillion yuan, up 23.89%. Wealth management AUM surged 29% year over year, also reaching a historical high. Domestic stock fund trading volume was 4.535 trillion yuan, up nearly 70% year over year, roughly keeping pace with industry activity, showing strong trading stickiness. The advantages in institutional business are even more pronounced: coverage of transactions for private equity clients at the “billion-yuan” level exceeded 90%; the market share of the number of private fund custody products was over 21%; the number of public fund custody products increased by nearly 25% year over year—making the company’s institutional service capability rank solidly in the first tier of the industry.

More valuable still is that the company has shifted from traditional brokerage to a deep transformation into comprehensive wealth management, building a “AI + human” dual-wheel service model. By year-end, the size of the wealth adviser team reached 1,468 people. Leveraging the intelligent investment advisory tool “Zhao Xiao’ang” and a digital service system, the company provides full-cycle services—including asset allocation coverage, investment advisory, and wealth planning—for a large base of retail clients as well as high-net-worth groups. This shift from “trading channels” to “wealth stewards” effectively reduces reliance on single commission income, enabling the wealth management business to gradually develop an anti-cycle quality, becoming a stabilizer that helps it ride through market volatility.

While core main businesses grew strongly, CICC Securities’ four business segments also showed an evenly improving trend: the investment banking business recovery accelerated, the proprietary trading business maintained a steady defensive posture, the asset management business grew steadily, and the company’s comprehensive financial service capability continued to strengthen.

In 2025, the investment banking business achieved a double improvement in quality and efficiency. Full-year revenue was 52.9k yuan, up 20.27%. Both equity and bond underwriting lines saw breakthroughs: it completed underwriting for 10 A-share IPOs, with the industry ranking rising to No. 4, the best performance in nearly a decade. Bond lead underwriting scale reached 517.5 billion yuan, ranking No. 10 in the industry. Even more eye-catching is the company’s capability to serve the real economy. It closely aligns with the “five key financial articles,” precisely targeting technology finance, green finance, and inclusive finance. In 2025, underwriting amounts were 453.5k yuan for technology finance, 1.03B yuan for green finance, and 65.13B yuan for inclusive finance, empowering the development of new quality productive forces through professional services. At the same time, investment banking execution quality maintained an A-category rating; the IPO reserve projects reached 13, providing ample momentum for future growth.

Proprietary trading and asset management businesses keep a steady “defensive” tone, providing reliable support for performance. Revenue from investment and trading was 6.94 billion yuan for the full year, up 9.56%. Even on the high base in 2024, it still delivered steady growth. The company adopts a prudent strategy of “fixed income as the foundation, equities to enhance,” with the proportion of bonds in trading financial assets at about 60%. This effectively controls risk and locks in returns amid market volatility, demonstrating strong capabilities in large-class asset allocation and risk management. Revenue from investment management was 954 million yuan, up 3.29%. Relying on two public fund platforms—Bosera Fund and CICC Fund—assets under management expanded steadily, and the product system continued to enrich.

As a core capital intermediary business, margin financing and securities lending (two-finance) grew in both scale and quality. By year-end, the two-finance balance was about 133.4 billion yuan, up 40% from the beginning of the year. Market share rose to 5.2%, and the amount of funds lent reached 22.61B yuan. While expanding in scale, the company strengthened credit risk controls, optimized client structure and underlying-asset selection. Business quality remained excellent, making it an important source of stable interest income and further enhancing client stickiness.

Behind the growth in performance is CICC Securities’ continued investment in financial technology and risk control, injecting strong momentum into high-quality development and building a solid safety line.

Leading the industry in financial technology transformation, in 2025 the company achieved three major core breakthroughs: it built the first cloud-native architecture core trading system in the securities industry, significantly improving trading processing capacity and stability; it comprehensively advanced the “AI securities company” initiative, with the “Zhao Zheng Tianqi” large-model application deployed, and intelligent marketing, intelligent risk control, and intelligent operations scenarios rolled out across the board; digital depth was integrated into all business lines—APP monthly active users grew 13.44% year over year, and average daily usage time per user ranked first in the industry—showing remarkable results from technology enablement. Full-year IT investment reached 37.78B yuan, up over 20%. By using technology to drive cost reduction and efficiency gains, as well as service upgrades, the company has formed a differentiated competitive advantage.

The risk control system continued to improve, and operating quality steadily optimized. The company has always adhered to a prudent operating philosophy, with the asset-liability ratio controlled at around 80%, staying within a reasonable range for the industry. Facing market volatility, it strengthened comprehensive risk management, optimized asset structure, and ensured effective controls over credit risk, market risk, and liquidity risk, with asset impairment losses kept at a low level. Even though operating cash flows faced short-term pressure due to business seasonality and volatility in financial assets, it did not change the company’s overall steady capital position and asset quality—further highlighting the authenticity and sustainability of profit growth.

Advance beyond the cycle and move toward higher-quality development that is more stable and farther

From an industry perspective, CICC Securities’ growth in 2025 is both a tailwind from the market recovery and a breakthrough driven by its own deep strategic cultivation. Against the industry background of 26 listed brokerages with net profit growing 44.61% year over year, the company’s 18.91% net profit growth rate is not the fastest, but it wins on solid fundamentals, optimized structure, and reliable quality. Compared with leading peers, CICC Securities still has room to improve in investment banking scale and proprietary trading flexibility. However, its leading advantage in wealth management, deep institutional-business moat, first-mover advantage in technology enablement, and a risk-control system that is stable and reliable together form its distinctive core competitiveness.

CICC Securities is currently in a critical phase of advancing from cyclical repair to structural optimization. The foundation of wealth management and institutional business is becoming increasingly solid. Synergies among investment banking, asset management, proprietary trading, and other businesses are strengthening. Financial technology and risk-control systems provide dual protection, enhanced further by the resource enablement from the China Merchants Group and the advantages of its full-license business model. The company has already developed a solid base for crossing cycles and delivering steady growth. In the short term, challenges such as a downward trend in commission rates due to market volatility and small fluctuations in market share exist objectively. But in the long term, these are precisely important opportunities for the company to optimize its structure and strengthen competitiveness.

For a top-tier securities firm, true “stability” has never been just record-high profits under a single cycle. It is a comprehensive reflection of continuous optimization of business structure, steady improvement in core market share, continuously strengthening anti-risk capability, and ongoing progression in the ability to serve the real economy. CICC Securities’ answer in 2025 clearly shows a clear thread of “recovery for the better and improving quality and efficiency”—this financial giant has sailed out of the shallow waters of the cycle, and is steadily moving into the deep waters of high-quality development, driven by its solid business foundation, strong transformation momentum, and prudent operating philosophy. Going forward, as wealth management deepens, investment banking capabilities improve, technology enablement deepens, and internationalization efforts advance, CICC Securities is expected to further consolidate its leading position and chart a development path that is more stable, farther-reaching, and more sustainable amid cycle fluctuations.