All 26 brokerages are expected to see increased performance in 2025, with 7 achieving over 10 billion yuan in revenue.

Against the backdrop of active trading in China’s domestic capital markets in 2025, with the Shanghai Composite Index posting a double-digit annual gain and the average daily trading value across the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets setting a new historical record, the securities industry has also delivered an eye-catching set of results. As of March 30, 26 listed securities firms and securities-related concept stocks had already released their 2025 performance data. In terms of revenue and net profit, all 26 institutions reported profits, and year-over-year growth has become an industry trend. Among them, CITIC Securities and Guotai Huarong are far ahead of the rest, with seven institutions stepping into the “Double-100 Billion Club.”

Driven by the ongoing rebound in performance, average employee compensation per capita at most securities firms has also stopped the prior downward trend and improved. By comparison, total annual executive compensation continued to narrow down, with most still showing year-over-year declines, the largest decrease reaching 37%. In the view of industry insiders, the securities firms’ compensation system has entered a long-term adjustment cycle: shifting from “maximizing short-term incentives” to a “long-term, steady orientation.” Differences in the compensation structure between executives and employees may become the norm.

Seven institutions enter the “Double-100 Billion Club”

With multiple leading securities firms, including Huatai, Galaxy, CICC, and 广发, disclosing their latest annual reports on March 30, the number of listed securities firms and securities-related concept stocks that have published their 2025 scorecards has increased to 26. Overall, the 26 institutions collectively generated operating revenue of RMB 4,547.1 billion, up 31.93% year over year; the total attributable net profit also reached RMB 1,850.64 billion, up 44.61% year over year.

Looking at each institution individually, for operating revenue, CITIC Securities ranked first with RMB 748.54 billion. Guotai Huarong followed closely with RMB 631.07 billion, becoming the only two securities firms to break the RMB 60 billion revenue mark. In the same period, another 13 securities firms—including Huatai Securities, GF Securities, and China International Capital Corporation—also posted operating revenue exceeding RMB 10 billion.

For attributable net profit, CITIC Securities and Guotai Huarong also led by a wide margin, at RMB 300.76 billion and RMB 278.09 billion, respectively, becoming the only two listed securities firms with attributable net profit exceeding RMB 20 billion. In addition, other institutions posting profits exceeding RMB 10 billion included Huatai Securities, GF Securities, China Galaxy, China Merchants Securities, and East Money, with RMB 16.383 billion, RMB 13.702 billion, RMB 12.52 billion, RMB 12.35 billion, and RMB 12.085 billion, respectively.

Overall, seven institutions have already entered the “Double-100 Billion Club” for both operating revenue and attributable net profit. By comparison, in 2024 there were five firms in the group; and GF Securities and East Money newly joined this cohort. Moreover, if securities firms with attributable net profit already exceeding RMB 9 billion are also mapped, then CICC, Shenwan Hongyuan, and CITIC Construction and also have a chance to become “reserve members.”

From the perspective of year-over-year growth rates, all 26 institutions saw increases in both revenue and net profit. Among them, Guotai Huarong and Guolian Minsheng, which completed integration in 2025, led the industry in both operating revenue and attributable net profit. Guotai Junan’s growth rates for the two figures were 87.4% and 113.52%, respectively, while Guolian Minsheng reached 185.99% and 405.49%.

Apart from the two institutions above, some securities firms also recorded sharp year-over-year growth in attributable net profit in 2025. For example, among leading firms, CICC and Shenwan Hongyuan both posted growth rates exceeding 70%. Meanwhile, Xiangcai Co., Ltd.’s attributable net profit increased by 325.15%, also showing high elasticity in performance among smaller and mid-sized securities firms.

Tian Lihui, a professor of finance at Nankai University, analyzed and said that the industry’s overall 2025 performance improved mainly due to a dual drive: the rebound in capital markets and the release of policy dividends. Based on the annual reports that have been disclosed, proprietary investment and wealth management have become the core engines of performance growth. Strong contribution from proprietary businesses is attributable to the large increase in fair value change gains brought by the uptrend in market indices, which is the most direct reflection of securities firms repairing their balance sheets. As for wealth management, its growth reflects that the industry’s transformation from pure intermediary channel trading to asset allocation services has shown initial results. These two areas together constitute the primary sources of securities firms’ earnings elasticity, and also validate the highly positive correlation between securities firms’ profitability and market conditions in an environment with ample liquidity.

Highest rise in average employee compensation up to one-third

Against the backdrop of continuous performance rebounds over the past few years, average employee compensation per capita at most listed securities firms also finally stopped falling and stabilized in 2025, showing a pickup.

According to 东方财富Choice (Eastmoney Choice) data, using the formula “average employee compensation per capita = (employee compensation paid + compensation payable at period-end for employees − compensation payable at period-beginning for employees) / [(number of employees at period-beginning + number of employees at period-end)/2],” after excluding Guotai Huarong and Guolian Minsheng, whose data has deviations due to integration reasons, among the 24 securities firms and securities-related concept stocks that currently disclose their 2025 annual reports, as many as 21 institutions saw an increase in average employee compensation per capita year over year in 2025. In terms of the range of growth, it is mainly concentrated between 5% and 20%.

Specifically, Hu’an Securities recorded the most noticeable increase in average employee compensation per capita, at 30.96%. Next came Industrial Securities, CICC, and Zhongyuan Securities, with increases of 26.35%, 24.4%, and 20.89%, respectively. Meanwhile, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily learned from people related to Guolian Minsheng that, based on a simulated consolidated comparison of 2024 data, the company’s average compensation per capita (including benefits) was RMB 634,200 in 2025, up 21.2% year over year; average compensation per capita (excluding benefits) was RMB 513,700, up 24%.

As for the compensation changes among the industry’s top three performers, the growth rates were all within 5%. Among them, CITIC Securities increased from RMB 779,800 in 2024 to RMB 812,800 in 2025, up 4.23% year over year; Huatai Securities increased from RMB 639,600 to RMB 669,100, up 4.61% year over year. In addition, for Guotai Huarong: if (the total number of employees at the end of 2024 for Guotai Junan + the total number of employees in mid-2024 for Haitong Securities) is used as the headcount at the beginning of the period to calculate, then its average annual compensation per capita in 2025 is approximately RMB 709,800, up 0.02%.

It is worth noting that many securities firms that saw a rebound in average employee compensation per capita in 2025 had previously gone through a relatively long compensation adjustment cycle. Looking back at 2021–2024 data, in that period, some securities firms’ employee compensation per capita was reduced for two or three consecutive years. The overall downward magnitude reached as much as 40%. At that time, analysts also pointed out that, due to increasingly stringent regulatory requirements on the standardization of financial institutions’ compensation systems, some securities firms adjusted their compensation structure, such as optimizing performance appraisal mechanisms and increasing the deferral proportion of compensation. These adjustments may have caused employees’ current compensation to decrease.

As for the modest rebound in average employee compensation per capita this round, Tian Lihui believes it is a lagging reflection of the industry’s improvement in business conditions, showing a relatively reasonable market-oriented linkage between compensation and performance. From the positive impact side, this change helps stabilize the talent pipeline and eases the pressure of core personnel loss caused by pay cuts in the prior years. At a deeper level, more optimistic expectations for compensation after the rebound can reserve space for the industry to attract outstanding talent. For the securities industry, which is in a critical period of transforming into specialized services such as investment banking and wealth management, stabilizing human capital is crucial. Of course, the overall rebound is restrained, which also reflects that the industry is managing compensation more cautiously and rationally.

Total executive compensation continues to narrow

Compared with the rebound in average employee compensation per capita, executive compensation totals at securities firms still declined in 2025. Based on the 26 listed securities firms and securities-related concept stocks disclosed so far, the total executive compensation for 2025 was approximately RMB 372 million, down 8.2% year over year, further narrowing compared with 2024.

Among them, as many as 22 securities firms saw year-over-year decreases in total executive compensation. Compared with 2024 annual report data, during the 2025 integration and adjustment period, Guolian Minsheng and Guotai Huarong added multiple executives, leading to an increase in total executive compensation.

Among the firms with year-over-year declines in total executive compensation—such as Shenwan Hongyuan, China Galaxy, and Hu’an Securities—10 firms saw declines exceeding 20% year over year. Among them, Shenwan Hongyuan’s decline was as high as 37.41%. China Galaxy and Hu’an Securities’ declines were also 30.76% and 29.21%, respectively.

Why did a noticeable “scissor gap” appear between average employee compensation per capita and total executive compensation? In the view of analysts, this is driven by multiple factors, including a regulatory orientation and adjustments to corporate governance logic.

Bai Wenxi, deputy chairman of the China Enterprise Capital Alliance, said there are three main aspects. First are policy compliance pressures: in recent years, the industry’s “pay caps” requirements have been increasingly intensifying, and executive compensation at securities firms with financial central SOE backgrounds is subject to even stricter window guidance. Second is the deferral payment mechanism: executive performance-based compensation is generally deferred for 3 to 5 years, meaning that portions paid in 2025 actually correspond to the relatively lower-performance period of 2022 to 2024. Third is risk-linked adjustments: regulatory requirements tie executive compensation to compliance, risk control, and long-term performance, so short-term profit growth may not immediately translate into cash compensation.

“This indicates that the securities firms’ compensation system has entered a long-term adjustment cycle: shifting from ‘maximizing short-term incentives’ to a ‘long-term, steady orientation.’ Differences in the compensation structure between executives and employees may become the norm. In the future, executive compensation will rely more on long-term equity incentives, while the elasticity of employee compensation that fluctuates with business cycles will increase,” Bai Wenxi said.

Tian Lihui also said that the divergence between executive compensation and ordinary employees’ compensation trends reflects deeper logic behind the industry’s compensation structure adjustments. This “scissor gap” phenomenon is directly related to changes in compensation management concepts under the regulatory orientation in recent years, with “lowering the cap, expanding the middle, and lowering the base” becoming a consensus across the industry. Specifically, the decline in executive compensation is affected not only by further strengthening of the compensation deferral mechanism, but also by the rigid constraints on executive compensation under the state-owned enterprise assessment system for responsible persons. It should be noted that this is not cyclical fluctuation, but a signal that the securities firms’ compensation system has entered a long-term structural adjustment phase. In the future, compensation will place more emphasis on being linked to risk cycles and matching long-term performance. The incentive and constraint mechanisms for executives will become more stable, while the incentive weight for key employees is expected to rise, helping build a more sustainable talent development framework.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Liu Yuyang