Broker "Profit King": Presenting a New Industry Map for "Patient Capital"

Ask AI · How does the new industry map reshape the capital market landscape?

Under policy guidance, various “patient capital” is steadily entering the capital market. These “long-distance runners” need a reliable long-term industry map. As the “cornerstone” of the capital market and the main sell-side research institutions, securities firms are among the primary creators of this new map. Meanwhile, the wave of Chinese companies going abroad is ongoing, and securities firms are providing follow-on services.

2025 annual report shows that securities firm “profit king” CITIC Securities is playing both roles. Due to mergers and acquisitions, Guotai Haitong has become the “largest” securities firm in terms of “scale” (total assets). CITIC Securities, in second place, still leads in many core indicators such as revenue, net profit, investment banking, and international business, especially with revenue and net profit at 74.9 billion yuan and 30.1 billion yuan respectively, significantly ahead of major competitors like Guotai Haitong and China International Capital Corporation.

How to provide professional services for “patient capital”? At the recent 2025 annual report exchange, Zou Yingguang, General Manager of CITIC Securities, responded to a researcher from Southern Weekend New Financial Research Center, saying they will leverage investment banking expertise, research pricing, and resource coordination to serve a batch of hard-tech companies entering the capital market, selecting high-quality long-term investment targets.

How to do a good job in follow-on services for Chinese companies going abroad? Zhang Youjun, Chairman of CITIC Securities, responded to a question from a researcher at Southern Weekend New Financial Research Center, stating that while continuing to increase resource input into the Hong Kong market, they will also orderly promote business layout in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Americas, and other regions.

Launching the new industry map

“Positioning the service of long-term funds entering the market as ‘an important measure to fulfill the mission of financial national service’.” Zou Yingguang, General Manager of CITIC Securities, provided this positioning and three key approaches: first, focus on asset supply, leverage investment banking pricing ability, serve hard-tech companies listing, and select high-quality targets for long-term funds; second, strengthen professional services, with the company releasing over 10k research reports and conducting over 50k roadshows in 2025, building an integrated trading platform; third, provide value preservation and appreciation, developing equity investment strategies suited for insurance funds and other “long money” attributes.

Summarized, this is an action: offering a “new industry map” for patient capital.

Looking at CITIC Securities’ 2025 underwriting list, a strong sense of “blood renewal” hits. Traditional projects worth hundreds of billions or trillions are almost gone, replaced by a series of names representing future industries. From specific projects, the “industry map” outline is quite clear. In 2025, CITIC Securities completed 72 A-share main underwriting projects, with an underwriting scale exceeding 270.6 billion yuan, holding over 24% market share, ranking first in the market. Among the IPOs, about 35% are semiconductor and integrated circuit companies, about 28% high-end equipment manufacturing, and about 17% innovative drugs and biotech, forming a clear “hard tech” listing channel.

In addition to participating in numerous projects, CITIC Securities exclusively sponsored the largest-scale IPO on the STAR Market in 2025 (initial public offering, commonly called “listing”), the first stock of domestic full-function GPUs (graphics processing units, core computing chips in AI, scientific computing, etc.), Moore Threads, and also exclusively sponsored two of the first three newly registered companies on the STAR Market’s growth layer (Xi’an Yicai and Bibert), which successfully listed.

In the current climate emphasizing quality and pace in IPOs, the companies most often brought to the capital market by top investment banks are semiconductor, AI, high-end manufacturing, and innovative drug companies—they represent new productive forces.

M&A and restructuring business within investment banking is also reshaping industry patterns. Under policies like the “Six M&A Rules,” 2025 has become China’s “big M&A year.” CITIC Securities completed 900M&A deals in China, with a transaction scale of 282.9 billion yuan, ranking first. Among these, 11 major asset restructuring deals on A-shares, with a transaction scale of 168.3 billion yuan, holding 36% market share. Large M&A deals like China Shipbuilding’s share swap to acquire China Reformer and AVIC Electric’s issuance of shares to purchase assets all reflect a clear trend of industry leaders advancing consolidation through capital operations.

The “map” creators are often also “long-distance runners” themselves. According to annual reports, CITIC Securities is also playing the role of “patient capital”—investing in multiple high-quality projects aligned with new productive forces, covering key fields like embodied intelligence, semiconductor equipment, domestic GPUs, and domestic servers. Its private equity platform CITIC Jinshi completed 11.05 billion yuan in new fund filings in 2025.

Behind this “new industry map” is also a profound reshaping of capital market funding structures and risk appetite. CITIC Securities’ annual report data also confirms the trend of “long-term funds” entering the market: the investment scale of the “three pillars” of pension funds has surpassed 1 trillion yuan, and several national social security funds’ domestic securities entrusted investment portfolios received A-grade evaluations.

Accelerating global deployment and follow-on services

In the wave of Chinese companies going abroad, how can securities firms provide follow-on services? Zhang Youjun, Chairman of CITIC Securities, answered: “Not only will we continue to increase investment in the Hong Kong market, but we will also orderly promote business layout in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Americas, and other regions, striving to build ‘China’s preferred partner for investment and investment in China.’”

Annual report data confirms the effectiveness of this strategy. In 2025, CITIC Securities International achieved revenue of $3.3 billion and net profit of $900 million, both hitting record highs, with year-on-year increases of 48% and 72%, respectively. Their contribution to total revenue and profit was about one-fifth each, at 18% and 21%.

It is noteworthy that this internationalization is deepening from “going out” to “going in.” The annual report shows CITIC Securities has licenses in 13 countries and regions, including London, New York, and Singapore. Specific projects include sponsoring Zijin Gold International’s second-largest IPO in Hong Kong in 2025, the largest IPO in the global gold mining industry; exclusively sponsoring Sany Heavy Industry’s third-largest IPO in Hong Kong, the largest IPO in the global construction machinery sector in nearly a decade; and assisting BYD with a $5.6 billion H-share rapid placement, the largest re-financing in Hong Kong in 2025.

From project types, CITIC Securities’ internationalization is no longer just about “sending Chinese companies abroad for listing,” but deeply embedding into the global industry chain—whether gold mining, construction machinery, or new energy vehicles, serving Chinese leading companies with global competitiveness, helping them allocate resources on a broader international stage. Behind these focused projects is a significant increase in overall market share. In 2025, CITIC Securities ranked second in Hong Kong IPO sponsorship and Asian (excluding Japan) M&A rankings, first in offshore bond underwriting for Chinese companies, and completed equity financing projects in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Australia, and other overseas markets.

What drives this acceleration of internationalization? Zhang Youjun attributed it to: “The achievements in 2025 are due to Chinese companies accelerating their globalization, the dual opening of capital markets, and the steady advancement of RMB internationalization.”

How to further internationalize? When asked by a researcher from Southern Weekend New Financial Research Center, Zhang Youjun said they will focus on strengthening their business network, service ecosystem, and management mechanisms, continuously improving cross-border comprehensive services, and “重点拓展中东、北美市场，探索越南、南美等新兴市场业务机遇” (“focusing on expanding into the Middle East and North America, exploring business opportunities in Vietnam, South America, and other emerging markets”).

From helping companies “go out” to accompanying them “go in,” CITIC Securities is transforming itself into a bridge connecting Chinese companies with global capital markets. This broadening of the global investment network also provides another map for domestic “patient capital.” It indicates that in the future, a larger proportion of public funds or pensions may be allocated to overseas assets through such professional platforms.

When “patient capital” intersects with China’s globalization wave, CITIC Securities’ 2025 annual report reveals a deeper trend: China’s leading securities firms are shifting from merely “transaction channels” to “industry enablers.” They are drawing the new industry map to guide long-term funds and building global bridges to accompany Chinese companies onto the world stage.

Southern Weekend Researcher Zhu Jiangshui

Editor: Feng Yu