Modern Investment: Achieving a Double Increase in Profitability by 2025—Activating Growth Through New Quality of Productive Forces

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Source: Shanghai Securities News · China Securities Network

China Securities Network, Shanghai Securities News, April 2 — In the evening of April 2, Modern Investment disclosed its 2025 annual report. In the concluding year of the “14th Five-Year Plan,” it delivered a response with both quality and efficiency improving. The annual report shows that for the full year, the company achieved operating revenue of RMB 5.93B, up 6.41% year over year; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was RMB 405 million, up 18.70% year over year; after deducting non-recurring items, net profit attributable to the parent company was RMB 512 million, up significantly by 57.42% year over year; net cash flow from operating activities reached RMB 3.01B, up 35.79% year over year.

Modern Investment has always based itself on the “one core with two wings” framework to deepen structural adjustments. With highway operations as the fundamental platform, it promotes coordinated empowerment between financial services and industrial operations. New quality productive forces such as smart operations, green transformation, and digital logistics are accelerating in cultivation and implementation, gradually achieving transformation from input to output. It not only drives the company’s transition from a traditional highway operator to a “comprehensive transportation industry service provider,” but also lays a solid foundation for high-quality development during the “15th Five-Year Plan.”

Main business operations are improved for better efficiency, with notable results from intelligent transformation. Highway operation is the company’s fundamental base and also the “stabilizing weight” for its transformation. The annual report shows that the company’s total mileage of highways it operates and manages under entrusted management totals 563 kilometers, covering multiple key segments such as the Changtan section of the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway and the Tan-Heng West section of the Xuguang Expressway. The road property layout is concentrated in Hunan Province’s major economic corridors, with a stable base of vehicle flows and reliable toll-revenue sources.

In response to the highway industry shifting from the construction peak period to the stock-operation period, Modern Investment taps potential internally and improves efficiency externally, focusing on intensive reform and intelligent upgrades. In 2025, the company integrated businesses including toll collection, maintenance, and road assets, established a unified operations management center, and the standardized construction results of the intensive management model were selected as a national typical case of highway operations.

The annual report mentions that in terms of intelligent transformation, projects such as the Zhoushan digital intelligent cloud toll station and Yangjiqiao lightweight cloud station were rolled out in succession, transforming traditional toll stations into efficiency nodes. Lane intelligent robots increased exit toll collection efficiency by 40%, and the vehicle type recognition accuracy exceeded 99%. Special upgrades such as the Changsha station tidal lanes and the Qiaojiang station integrated lanes improved lane resource utilization by 30% to 50%, and reduced travel time during peak hours by more than 40%. Without building even one inch of new road, the company is releasing the traffic potential and benefit space of existing assets through technological means. At the same time, by optimizing the financing structure through methods such as debt replacement, the company reduced the integrated financing cost of existing debt from 2.97% at the beginning of the year to 2.66%; full-year finance expenses decreased by 17.49% year over year, with remarkable results in cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

New businesses are progressing steadily, driven by green and digital “twin engines.” In 2025, Modern Investment kept the “stability” foundation in place and accelerated progress on new businesses. Focusing on the national “dual carbon” strategy and the direction of digital economy development, the company is accelerating its layout in green energy and digital logistics, and tangible progress has been made in cultivating new quality productive forces.

In the new energy sector, the company leverages the policy dividend of Hunan Province’s “transportation-energy integration” initiative. As the only implementing enterprise for新能源 (new energy) deployment in highway scenarios within the province, it steadily advances the three-year action plan for photovoltaic construction. The synergy of “transportation + energy” not only contributes green electricity, but also opens up a new channel for value appreciation of road-adjacent assets.

In the digital logistics sector, the company invested and set up a controlling company, Hunan Digital Intelligent Logistics Information Group Co., Ltd., positioning it as a provincial-level core logistics big-data operation service platform. During the reporting period, the “Highway Huithong” digital service platform APP was officially launched. It integrates multiple-source data such as government affairs, freight transport, and payments, and introduces innovative services such as “pay first, then pay later” and “logistics e-loans,” focusing on solving logistics companies’ financing difficulties and congestion problems at toll stations.

In R&D, investment continues to increase. During the reporting period, the company’s R&D expenses were RMB 28.93 million, up 9.74% year over year. It added 11 authorized patent grants and 3 software copyright registrations. Multiple R&D projects such as intelligent diagnosis and early warning for bridges and tunnels, and digitization enabling logistics, were successfully completed and accepted. Technological achievements are accelerating their transformation into operational results.

Governance empowerment increases value, and industry-finance coordination reshapes valuation logic. Modern Investment, relying on leading governance capabilities and deep industry-finance coordination, continuously strengthens its development foundation. Moreover, by building an internal growth and external premium “dual-engine” through both endogenous growth and external value-added premium, it promotes the valuation logic from traditional public utilities to being reshaped into “technology + platform,” breaking through entrenched valuation constraints.

In 2025, Modern Investment was consecutively rated as an A-grade enterprise for information disclosure by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange for the fourth year. Its Wind ESG rating rose to AA grade. It received multiple honors including “Excellent Practice Cases for Sustainable Development by Listed Companies.” The construction of a three-in-one digital system for compliance and internal control risk was selected as a “Best Practice Case for Internal Control of Listed Companies in China,” and with high-standard governance, it lays institutional safeguards for long-term stable development.

Regarding industry-finance coordination, the company fully leverages the financial advantages of multiple licenses such as banks, futures, and financial leasing.

The annual report shows that Dayou Futures deepened its “insurance + futures” program to help farmers, adding 3 national invention patent authorizations. Its digital business management system realized a full-process online closed loop. By successfully completing the absorption and merger of Hunan Yueyang Xiangjiang Township Bank, it increased capital by RMB 100 million to its wholly owned subsidiary Modern New Energy to optimize its industrial layout. The company’s annual investment amounted to RMB 157 million, up 75.40% year over year, reserving project resources for the development of strategic emerging industries.

At the same time, the company plans to use 1.52B shares as the base, and distribute RMB 1.6 in cash per 10 shares (including tax), equivalent to RMB 0.16 in cash dividend per share. This accounts for 60.03% of the net profit attributable to the parent company for the current year. Based on the closing price of RMB 4.18 per share on April 2, the dividend yield is approximately 3.83%. It continues the stable dividend distribution pace to date. While increasing transformation investments, the company continues to deliver stable returns to investors, fully reflecting the company’s development philosophy of putting investors first.

Currently, the company has already formed a development pattern driven by the dual engines of endogenous growth and external premium. With the high-growth potential and high certainty accumulated through transformation, it lays a solid foundation for achieving the “Davis double-click,” where performance and valuation resonate. It is expected to fundamentally break the long-standing undervaluation situation.

For the period of the “15th Five-Year Plan,” Modern Investment has clearly put forward the strategic guideline of “the main business as the foundation, industry-finance co-existence, and improvement in four dimensions,” aiming to become a “domestically first-class comprehensive transportation industry service provider.” The company will continue to deepen the development of intelligent highways, expand large-scale deployment of its new energy business, and promote deep integration between industry and capital, so that it can continue to play the role of the main force of a state-owned enterprise in serving the construction of a transportation power and Hunan Province’s “three highs and four new” strategy. (Ye Yanmo)

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