Listing | Bullet Finance

Author | Duan Nannan

Editor | Feng Yu

Design | Qian Qian

Review | Song Wen

Against the backdrop of the continued hot capital markets, securities firms, as “bull market flag bearers,” seem to have been forgotten by investors. The securities index has fallen over 6% since the beginning of 2026. As an Anhui local securities firm, Guoyuan Securities is no exception, with its stock price down more than 4% so far in 2026.

Although the company’s stock performance in the capital market has been poor, due to active overall A-share trading and continuous index growth, Guoyuan Securities’ performance has been relatively impressive, especially in investment income, which increased by over 100% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2025. Thanks to the significant growth in investment income, Guoyuan Securities’ net profit attributable to parent company reached a new high for the same period since 2015 in the first three quarters of 2025.

However, due to serious homogeneity in business operations within the industry, the Matthew effect has become more apparent. Investment banking activities such as IPOs and private placements are gradually monopolized by leading firms, making it extremely difficult for small- and medium-sized firms like Guoyuan Securities to break through. In this context, how will Guoyuan Securities, rooted in Anhui, find a way to break out?

1. Investment income drives performance growth, asset management business remains a weakness

The overall performance of the capital market in 2025 was outstanding, with the Shanghai Composite Index rising by 18.41% for the year, and the ChiNext Index nearly 50%.

Driven by the significant rise in A-share prices, securities firms delivered impressive results. For example, CITIC Securities, a leading securities firm, achieved a net profit attributable to parent of 30.051 billion yuan in 2025, up 38.46% year-on-year, marking the first time in its history that net profit exceeded 300 billion yuan.

For Guoyuan Securities, the situation was similar. In the first three quarters of 2025, Guoyuan Securities achieved operating revenue of 4.971 billion yuan, up 26.20%, and net profit attributable to parent of 2.015 billion yuan, up 28.34%.

Guoyuan Securities’ profit surged directly due to a sharp increase in investment income. In the first three quarters of 2025, Guoyuan Securities’ investment income reached 2.596 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 102.37%. The company explained that this was mainly due to increased gains from the disposal of bond financial assets.

In 2021, Guoyuan Securities expanded its balance sheet aggressively, adding 19.958 billion yuan in new borrowings that year. Over the following years, the firm continued to increase external borrowing, mainly used for trading financial assets.

By the end of 2021, Guoyuan Securities’ tradable financial assets amounted to 16.83 billion yuan. As of September 30, 2025, this balance had risen to 38.66 billion yuan.

According to the semi-annual report, the company’s tradable financial assets mainly consist of bonds, most of which are low-risk government bonds. Through frequent trading of government bonds, Guoyuan Securities has earned substantial investment returns.

In the first half of 2025, Guoyuan Securities sold bonds worth a total of 337.906 billion yuan, generating 2.448 billion yuan in investment income.

Besides the surge in investment income, growth in brokerage revenue was also a key factor in the company’s performance increase. In the first three quarters of 2025, brokerage fee income reached 1.108 billion yuan, a rise of over 71%.

The increase in brokerage income is closely related to the sustained active trading volume in the stock market. Data from Wind shows that in the first three quarters of 2025, the total trading volume of A-shares was 301.92 trillion yuan, up over 17% from 257.33 trillion yuan in the same period of 2024, setting a new record.

Amid the surge in trading volume, Guoyuan Securities’ stock trading commissions increased significantly, directly boosting its brokerage revenue.

Despite excellent performance in brokerage and investment income, the company’s asset management business performed poorly. In the first three quarters of 2025, Guoyuan Securities’ asset management revenue was only 62.61 million yuan, down over 45% year-on-year.

According to the semi-annual report, all major revenue streams within the asset management segment declined, with the highest proportion being the net income from collective asset management, which was 43.56 million yuan, a decrease of 29.72%. In contrast, industry leader CITIC Securities’ asset management revenue in the first three quarters of 2025 reached 8.703 billion yuan, up over 16%.

Regarding the decline in asset management revenue, “Bullet Finance” attempted to contact Guoyuan Securities for clarification but had not received a response by the time of publication.

2. Sponsoring representative suspected of bribery, investment banking faces challenges in Anhui

In addition to poor asset management performance, Guoyuan Securities’ investment banking revenue is relatively small, and frequent compliance risks are another issue the company needs to address.

In the first three quarters of 2025, Guoyuan Securities’ investment banking fee income was 149 million yuan, up 55%. Although this segment grew, its scale remains far behind leading firms and ranks relatively low among listed securities companies.

Data shows that the revenue and profit scale of Guoyuan Securities’ investment banking are not competitive. For example, Changcheng Securities, another major player, earned 211 million yuan in investment banking revenue in the same period, far exceeding Guoyuan Securities’ 149 million yuan. Among 42 listed securities firms in the first three quarters of 2025, Guoyuan Securities ranked 29th in investment banking revenue and 18th in profit.

From the perspective of revenue and ranking, Guoyuan Securities’ overall investment banking performance is not ideal. In the first three quarters of 2025, 78 companies completed IPOs on the A-share market, but Guoyuan Securities only sponsored one, a company from Huangshan, Anhui—an enterprise with local influence as an Anhui state-owned firm.

This company is a new energy component manufacturer, which raised a net of 481.3 million yuan in its IPO, paying 68.72 million yuan in underwriting fees—Guoyuan Securities’ only IPO underwriting income in the first three quarters.

Additionally, leveraging its influence in Anhui, Anhui State-owned Jianghuai Automobile completed a private placement of 3.5 billion yuan, also exclusively sponsored by Guoyuan Securities, with issuance fees exceeding 20 million yuan.

With just one IPO and one refinancing project for Anhui companies, Guoyuan Securities’ investment banking revenue in the first three quarters of 2025 reached only 149 million yuan. Outside Anhui, the firm has few projects in the equity financing market.

Besides limited influence outside Anhui, Guoyuan Securities’ investment banking faces frequent compliance risks. In October 2025, listed company Silt announced that its former senior executives’ cases involving embezzlement and bribery had been transferred for review and prosecution.

Among those involved is Sun Bin, a sponsor representative at Guoyuan Securities, suspected of accepting bribes from non-state staff.

Sun Bin joined Guoyuan Securities in 2008 and has served as a sponsor representative since 2014, making him a veteran of the firm. He sponsored Silt’s IPO, private placement, and convertible bond issuance.

In fact, besides Sun Bin’s suspected bribery, Guoyuan Securities’ investment banking quality has also been questioned in the market. In 2023 and 2024, the firm sponsored 19 IPO projects, but 12 were voluntarily withdrawn, with a withdrawal rate of 63.16%, raising doubts about the professionalism of its project screening.

In April 2025, Anhui Securities Regulatory Bureau publicly pointed out issues such as “inadequate implementation of internal policies and insufficient due diligence on some projects,” issuing a warning letter to Guoyuan Securities. Notably, in 2025 alone, Guoyuan Securities received four penalties.

Therefore, improving project quality and expanding investment banking revenue remain urgent priorities for Guoyuan Securities.

3. Post-80s dominate management team, key risk control indicators exceed warning levels

In the context of underperforming investment banking and asset management, Guoyuan Securities has focused more on youth in its management team, with post-80s members increasingly taking leading roles.

On December 15, 2025, the new board of directors was elected. Several directors were replaced during this session.

For example, Gao Yuanyuan, born in 1990, vice chief accountant of Jian’an Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd., was appointed as a non-independent director of Guoyuan Securities. The company also introduced two senior scholars in accounting and financial management, Ren Mingchuan and Jiang Cuiqing, as independent directors.

Currently, the board’s age structure is relatively balanced, with members ranging from the “post-50s” to the “post-90s.”

Compared to the board, the management team is notably younger. Of the eight management team members, five are born in the 1980s.

For instance, President Hu Wei was born in 1981; vice presidents Chen Ning and Liang Huabin were born in 1983 and 1982, respectively; secretary Li Zhoufeng and executive committee member Huang Yue were born in 1981 and 1983.

It is reported that the post-80s management team began to join the management ranks gradually from 2022. Guoyuan Securities has been accelerating balance sheet expansion and increasing proprietary investment since then.

In 2022, the company’s total liabilities were 96.55 billion yuan; by September 30, 2025, liabilities had increased to 147.3 billion yuan.

Guoyuan Securities raised funds mainly through selling and repurchasing financial assets and trading financial liabilities, using the proceeds primarily for trading financial assets and other debt investments.

As a result, trading financial assets increased from 14.89 billion yuan to 38.66 billion yuan, and other debt investments grew from 46.51 billion yuan to 51.7 billion yuan.

Driven by this, investment income has risen year after year—from 561 million yuan in 2022 to 2.345 billion yuan in 2024, and further to 2.598 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2025.

Due to large external borrowing, Guoyuan Securities’ risk control indicators are also out of control. As of September 30, 2025, key indicators such as risk coverage ratio, capital leverage ratio, liquidity coverage ratio, and net stable funding ratio were 189.30%, 17.63%, 266.38%, and 155.72%, respectively—all significantly above regulatory warning standards.

Under the leadership of a management team mainly composed of post-80s members, Guoyuan Securities has driven continuous growth through increased leverage. However, given that its core risk control indicators are far above warning and regulatory standards, there is limited room for further leverage expansion.

Therefore, expanding investment banking and asset management revenue remains one of the few ways for Guoyuan Securities to further improve performance. But due to serious industry homogeneity and monopolization by top firms like “Three Centrals and One Huazhong,” it is difficult for small- and medium-sized firms like Guoyuan Securities to expand investment banking and asset management income.

In this context, many regional securities firms are beginning to pursue growth through restructuring and mergers. For example, Western Securities, backed by Shaanxi State-owned assets, acquired Guorong Securities; Jiangsu Wuxi State-owned Guolian Securities acquired Minsheng Securities; and recently, Dongwu Securities, controlled by Suzhou Finance Bureau, announced plans to acquire Donghai Securities.

In addition, apart from Guoyuan Securities, Anhui State-owned assets also control Huaxia Securities, another listed securities firm. Previously, due to the common Anhui State-owned background and the regulatory encouragement of securities firm restructuring, investors held high expectations for a merger between the two. However, so far, no substantial action has been taken.

For Guoyuan Securities, amid the continued hot market and significant balance sheet expansion to increase proprietary investments, its performance has been steadily improving in recent years.

But since its risk control indicators are far above warning and regulatory standards, future leverage expansion is limited. Therefore, accelerating mergers and acquisitions, like other regional firms, remains one of the few options for Guoyuan Securities to further boost performance.

Images in the article are sourced from: Jiemian News Image Library.