China Merchants Securities net profit reaches 12.3 billion yuan, setting a new record high; wealth management remains the primary source of income; AI brokerage construction achieves three major breakthroughs.

Ask AI · How can digital wealth management models help drive a 29% growth in AUM?

China Finance Network (3月28日) (Reporter: Zhao Xinrui) On the evening of March 27, China Merchants Securities released its 2025 annual report. Revenue has continued to grow for three consecutive years, profits reached a historic high, and its financial technology rollout also delivered key breakthroughs.

The annual report shows that in 2025, China Merchants Securities achieved operating revenue of RMB 24.97 billion, up 20% year over year, maintaining growth for three consecutive years; it recorded total profit of RMB 14.08 billion and net profit of RMB 12.32 billion, up 25% and 19% year over year respectively, with both setting historic highs.

At the business level, multiple key metrics improved in both quality and efficiency, with breakthroughs in rankings. Based on market data already disclosed, the company’s wealth management finance and brokerage business—agency securities trading—net revenue rose into the top three in the industry; net revenue from distribution of financial products, the scale of stock pledge business, and interest income, among other key indicators, have also stayed in the top five industrywide. The total scale of custody outsourcing first surpassed RMB 4 trillion. In investment banking, key indicators such as underwriting amount and number of deals for stock underwriting, as well as IPO underwriting amount and number of deals, saw significant improvements in rankings; its ranking of 4th in IPO underwriting by deal count is the best in the past decade.

Financial technology has become an important engine for China Merchants Securities’ high-quality development. Throughout the year, it achieved three major core breakthroughs:

First, it built the industry’s first core trading system based on a cloud-native architecture, achieving technology leadership in system architecture;

Second, it actively developed an “AI securities firm,” advancing the build-out and iterative upgrades of AI applications;

Third, by deeply embedding digital capabilities, it continuously improved the digitalization level of major business platforms such as wealth management and institutional business, achieving an in-depth integration of digital transformation and business value.

From the perspective of principal businesses, most segments delivered revenue growth, but other business income saw phased adjustments. In 2025, the company’s other business income was RMB 40k, down 12.64% year over year.

Wealth management builds a new digital model; AUM grows 29% year over year to a record high

In terms of business segments, wealth management is the company’s largest source of revenue. In 2025, this business generated operating revenue of RMB 2.22B, up 35.1%, mainly driven by growth in net fee income from agency securities trading.

Amid the industry’s wave of wealth management transformation, the company accelerated the development of a customer-centered digital wealth management system. Its wealth management AUM grew 29% year over year throughout the year, setting another historic high. At the same time, it continued to strengthen the construction of its wealth advisor teams and, relying on AI empowerment, built a “AI + human” dual-wheel service model. By the end of 2025, the number of wealth advisors reached 1468.

Domestic and overseas custody and trading scales expanded in step and continued to grow steadily. As of the end of December 2025, the company had approximately 20.9722 million domestic trading customers, up 8.67% year over year, and custody customer assets of RMB 5.29 trillion, up 23.89%. In overseas markets, China Merchants Securities International’s custody customer asset scale was HKD 13.82B, up 24.64% from the end of 2024.

Worth noting is that, against the backdrop of the industry generally shrinking branch institutions, China Merchants Securities in 2025 did not close or cancel any subsidiaries or branch offices. By year-end, the company had 14 subsidiaries and 265 branch offices, and also deployed overseas institutions in places such as Hong Kong and South Korea, with its service network covering major global capital markets.

Investment banking: IPO underwriting by deal count ranks best in the past decade; Hong Kong-stock projects deliver multi-fold growth

In the investment banking business, China Merchants Securities’ “Lingyue Plan” launched in 2019 has become a core tool for serving growth-oriented STAR Market and technology innovation enterprises. By the end of 2025, the plan had累计 onboarded 665 enterprises; more than 80 enterprises successfully completed conversion into investment banking business, and its reserve pipeline continued to be strengthened.

In 2025, the company’s equity underwriting scale and number of projects grew sharply in parallel. For A-share IPOs, performance was strong: the company completed 10 A-share IPO underwriting deals for the year. Its industry ranking rose to 4th, improving by 5 places year over year, achieving the best performance in the past decade.

Hong Kong-stock IPO growth was even better. According to Bloomberg statistics, in 2025, the company completed 7 Hong Kong IPO projects in total, with underwriting proceeds of USD 422 million, up 251.31% year over year. The number of Hong Kong listing application projects submitted by the company to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange also achieved multi-fold growth year over year.

Asset management net revenue grows 12.77% year over year, while scale declines year over year

In the asset management business, in 2025 China Merchants Asset Management focused on enhancing active management capability, with the issuance scale of FOF products showing significant growth. Benefiting from growth in revenue from publicly offered fund management business, China Merchants Asset Management’s net revenue in 2025 was RMB 821 million, up 12.77%.

But in terms of asset management scale, the trend was downward. As of the end of 2025, China Merchants Asset Management’s total assets under management were RMB 52.9k, down 2.37% year over year. Among them, the scale of pooled asset management plans fell 66.46% year over year, and net revenue from pooled asset management plans fell 53.49% year over year.

For overseas asset management, China Merchants International Asset Management focused on promoting ETF product issuance. Its asset management total scale at period-end reached HKD 268.74B, up sharply 107.73% from the end of 2024.

The fund business segment maintained steady development. As of the end of 2025, Bosera Fund’s assets under management (including subsidiaries) reached RMB 261.05B, up 2.93%; and China Merchants Fund’s assets under management (including subsidiaries) reached RMB 22.07B, up 1.63%.

More than 90% coverage of trading for “hundred-billion” private fund clients

In 2025 as well, China Merchants Securities continued to deepen and推进 the transformation and innovation of its institutional client business.

At the end of the reporting period, the company accelerated the introduction of broker clearing products, and the scale of broker clearing business continued to grow steadily.

In private fund client services, the company worked to build the “Private Fund Navigator Plan” brand. The scale of private fund trading assets grew 55.41% year over year. As of December 2025, the coverage ratio of private fund clients with management scale exceeding RMB 1.59T for their trading surpassed 90%.

China Merchants Securities’ publicly offered fund custody outsourcing business worked to build an ETF publicly offered fund ecosystem circle. By the end of 2025, the company had 33.7k custody outsourcing products, with a scale of RMB 4.28 trillion, up 23.72%. Of these, the scale of overseas fund administrative custody outsourcing was HKD 33.7k, up 201.50% year over year.

AI empowers every business line in depth; IT spending grows 20.58% year over year

China Finance Network noted that in its 2025 annual report, China Merchants Securities frequently mentioned the term “AI,” and set “AI securities firm” as its strategic vision.

During the reporting period, the company used large-model technology to fully empower all business lines and operations management, with digital transformation deeply implemented. In 2025, the company’s information technology spending reached RMB 1.908 billion (parent company basis), up 20.58% year over year, ranking among the top in the industry by investment scale.

In wealth business, the company built a marketing service assistant “Zhao Xiaogu” to help wealth advisors improve service quality and efficiency in areas such as grasping market hotspots, assisting with product research, asset allocation services, and investor education;

In institutional business, it built a unified institutional service brand “China Merchants Securities Zhiji,” releasing a Zhiji platform assistant and an AI “treasure box” for institutional client managers; at the same time, it built a digital employee “Custody 007” to significantly improve operational efficiency in custody business;

In research business, it built an “AI Research Institute,” exploring innovative applications of generative AI in scenarios such as earnings report interpretation, drafting research reports, and assistant tools for research analysts. An end-to-end smart research workstation covers the full “search, read, write, review” process for analysts’ content production;

In investment banking, it constructed an intelligent investment banking operations system, embedding AI applications such as intelligent manuscript review, intelligent drafting of investment banking documents, and bank cash-flow recognition;

In office and operations scenarios, it built a data service assistant “Zhao Xiaoshu” and a general office assistant “Zhao Xiaoju,” empowering front-line operations and management to improve efficiency.

(China Finance Network reporter: Zhao Xinrui)