How was last year's performance? What changes occurred in investments? The management of China Ping An responds to each question one by one.

Interface News Reporter | Zeng Lingjun

On the morning of March 27, China Ping An (601318.SH, 02318.HK) held its 2025 annual performance briefing, with Chairman Ma Mingzhe attending alongside a group of senior executives. The management addressed topics of interest to the outside world, such as life insurance reform, stock performance, and investment strategies.

At the performance briefing, Ping An’s Deputy General Manager and Chief Financial Officer Fu Xin summarized the company’s annual performance with four key phrases: “overall improvement, high-value growth, strategic deepening, and service innovation.”

On the evening of March 26, China Ping An released its 2025 annual report, showing that the company achieved an operating profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company of 134.415 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.3%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company, deducting non-recurring gains and losses, was 143.773 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.5%.

When discussing net profit, Fu Xin told the media, including Interface News reporters, that under the company’s accounting classification, there are over 90 billion yuan in unrealized gains from OCI stocks that are not included in the current profit; this portion of income effectively strengthens the company’s balance sheet, laying a very good foundation for future development, sustainable profit release, and stable dividends in the future.

The agent team is gradually stabilizing and recovering.

Data shows that in 2025, China Ping An’s life and health insurance business maintained a growth trend, achieving new business value of approximately 36.897 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.3%; new business value rate (based on standard premiums) was 28.5%, an increase of 5.8 percentage points year-on-year.

By channel, the new business value from the agent channel grew by 10.4% year-on-year, while per capita new business value increased by 17.2% year-on-year; the new business value from the bank insurance channel increased by 138% year-on-year; the contributions of the bank insurance channel, community financial services, and other channels to Ping An’s new business value increased by 12.1 percentage points year-on-year.

Fu Xin commented that the NBEV (new business value) has achieved double-digit growth for three consecutive years, which is very difficult. In recent years, we have deepened the “life insurance products + channels” reform, and the results of this reform better prove the efforts we have made in the past few years.

Fu Xin stated that China Ping An no longer relies solely on individual insurance channels but adopts a multi-channel approach. There are individual insurance channels, high-growth bank insurance channels, and community financial channels; the high-quality development of these channels is a key support for the company’s sustainable growth in the future.

In terms of the sales team size, the number of Ping An Life insurance agents is gradually stabilizing and recovering. By the end of 2025, the number of personal life insurance sales agents at Ping An Life was approximately 351,000, a decrease of 3.3% compared to the end of 2024, but an increase of 3.24% compared to 340,000 at the end of June 2025.

At the performance briefing, Ping An’s Co-CEO Guo Xiaotao told the media, including Interface News reporters, that Ping An’s life insurance channel has a balanced channel structure. We have life insurance agents, bank insurance channels, and community financial channels. This balanced channel structure allows us to effectively resist the fluctuations in market performance during market volatility.

“If we look at the agents themselves, the agents are continuously progressing along the path of high-quality transformation, and they are getting better and better, so the per capita productivity of agents is constantly improving, and the proportion of high-performing agents within the entire agent structure is continuously optimizing,” Guo Xiaotao said.

Valuation remains relatively low.

Regarding the recent stock price trends, Fu Xin stated at the performance briefing that recent capital market fluctuations have intensified, combined with some geopolitical factors, not only Ping An but many companies have experienced varying degrees of stock price volatility. The company’s investment side is closely monitoring relevant developments. From Ping An’s perspective, management mainly judges from three dimensions: industry, company, and valuation.

First, from the industry perspective, whether in finance, healthcare, or technology, all are in important tracks supported by policies and growing demand. In particular, the life insurance business is entering a golden development period, and sectors such as comprehensive finance and healthcare also have strong development potential, laying the foundation for the company’s sustainable growth in the next 3 to 5 years, and even 5 to 10 years.

Second, from the company’s operational perspective, Ping An’s overall performance is stable, with profit and future profit forward-looking indicators remaining good. The quality of core property and casualty business continues to improve, and characteristics of stable operations, improved efficiency, optimized quality, and high-value growth are further evident.

Finally, from the valuation perspective, management believes that despite the market and investors’ recognition of Ping An increasing in the past two years, the company’s valuation remains relatively low. As more investors gain further understanding of the company’s value, Ping An’s investment value is expected to be more fully reflected.

Gold allocation began early last year.

By the end of 2025, the scale of China Ping An’s insurance fund investment portfolio was approximately 6.49 trillion yuan, an increase of about 13.2% compared to the end of 2024. In 2025, the company’s insurance fund investment portfolio achieved a comprehensive investment return of 6.3%, a year-on-year increase of 0.5 percentage points.

In terms of asset allocation, Guo Xiaotao stated that Ping An Group is long-term capital and patient capital, so in the investment process, seeing short-term fluctuations is not important. What is more important is how to navigate through cycles to provide long-term sustainable steady returns for the company’s clients and shareholders.

He emphasized that Ping An’s investments adhere to five matching principles, and Ping An’s investments must be closely integrated with the liability side of the company. Whether it is fixed income, equity, or other types of investments, the five matching principles are an important guiding philosophy.

In its annual report, China Ping An stated that in terms of equity investment, the company insists on a long-term investment philosophy, increasing the balanced layout of dividend value-type and technology growth-type equities, pursuing long-term stable investment returns that exceed the market. In terms of fixed income investment, the company actively responds to interest rate downward risks, proactively allocating interest rate bonds when prices are high, and maintains a good match between cost returns and duration.

“This year we see a lot of uncertainties, and the entire capital market will be relatively volatile, but we believe the overall trend of the capital market this year will be positive,” Guo Xiaotao stated.

According to him, Ping An’s core investment strategy this year is called “seeking certainty amid uncertainty.” For patient capital over a long cycle, the most important thing for investment is to align fully with the direction of national economic development. New productive forces are a certain factor, the vigorous development of infrastructure is a certain factor, healthcare, health, and elder care are certain factors in the overall national economic development, a strong financial nation is a certain factor, and a Healthy China is a certain factor. These are all important directions for long-term investments and asset allocations.

Regarding gold allocation, Guo Xiaotao said that gold is an important asset class in Ping An’s overall asset allocation. Ping An began actively allocating a certain amount of gold investment since the beginning of last year. In today’s environment, the investment returns brought by gold have met expectations. Ping An will continue to pay attention to the trends of such assets and include them as one of the strategic assets in the allocation of the entire investment asset class.