Who is the "Number One Brokerage"? CITIC's offense and defense, Guotai Haitong closing in

If you’re trading stocks, just look at the brokerage analysts’ research reports from Jinqilin—authoritative, professional, timely, comprehensive, helping you uncover high-potential themes and opportunities!

Nearly 20 years have passed since Citic Securities’ total assets and net profit first rose to the top of the industry, establishing its position as the “brokerage boss No. 1” in China—spanning half the history of the A-share market.

As a result, the competition for “No. 1 broker” has drawn even more attention in 2025.

In the first half of 2025, after the restructuring, Guotai Junan—Haitong (Guotai Haitong) overtook Citic on the strength of the net profit indicator. The latter only regained the lead in the second half thanks to strong momentum, with full-year attributable net profit 2.267 billion yuan higher than Guotai Haitong.

The two top institutions’ battle over core indicators such as total assets, net assets, net capital, operating revenue, and net profit also embeds a clash between securities institutions in Beijing and Shanghai, each leveraging different competitive strengths to exchange blows in the innovation arena.

At least during the 2025 annual report season, Guotai Haitong was still digesting historical burdens such as Haitong International. Just Haitong International alone dragged down its 2025 net profit by about 3.0 billion yuan. Once the risks are fully cleared, Guotai Haitong’s profitability potential should not be underestimated. Citic Securities holds advantages in investment banking revenue and profit margins, but Guotai Haitong has quietly overtaken it on key metrics such as the number of IPO underwriting seats and the number of projects under review. This mismatched competition between “number of seats” and “scale” makes the ownership of the crown in investment banking far from certain.

A battle over net profit: overtaking and uncertainty

Judging from operating revenue and net profit, Citic Securities’ position at the top appears more solid.

In 2025, Citic Securities achieved attributable net profit of 30.076 billion yuan, its first time breaking through the 30 billion yuan mark and setting a record-best performance in history. Compared with Guotai Haitong, the improvement is also substantial.

The 2025 interim report was the first interim report released after Guotai Junan and Haitong Securities merged to form Guotai Haitong, and the 2025 annual report was the first annual report released after their merger. In the 2025 interim report period, Citic Securities’ attributable net profit had been surpassed by Guotai Haitong. At that time, Citic Securities’ attributable net profit for the first half of the year was 13.719 billion yuan, which was 2.018 billion yuan less than Guotai Haitong.

However, looking at the full year of 2025, Citic Securities caught up, realizing attributable net profit of 30.076 billion yuan, which was 2.267 billion yuan higher than Guotai Haitong (27.809 billion yuan).

This also means that in the second half of 2025, Citic Securities had 4.285 billion yuan more attributable net profit than Guotai Haitong.

On operating revenue, Citic Securities’ first-place position was also still stable. In 2025, it recorded operating revenue of 74.854 billion yuan for the full year, again setting a new historical high. Guotai Haitong was 63.107 billion yuan—Citic Securities had 11.747 billion yuan more. In the 2025 interim report, Citic Securities was 9.167 billion yuan higher than Guotai Haitong.

In other words, in the second half of 2025, Citic Securities’ operating revenue was only 2.58 billion yuan higher than Guotai Haitong—far less than the large lead it had in the first half.

This means that in the second half of 2025, Citic Securities surpassed Guotai Haitong in both operating revenue and attributable net profit. But comparing first half vs. second half, in the second half Citic Securities not only exceeded Guotai Haitong on attributable net profit but quickly widened the gap; while on operating revenue, the difference between the two shrank markedly compared with the first half.

Benefiting from the overall stabilization and rebound of China’s A-shares in 2025, securities companies’ performance improved significantly. Like Citic Securities, those brokers that saw both operating revenue and attributable net profit hit record highs, and Guotai Haitong’s annual report as the first released after the merger in particular showed especially notable growth rates. In 2025, Citic Securities’ year-on-year growth rates for operating revenue and attributable net profit were 28.79% and 38.58%, respectively. Guotai Haitong’s figures were as high as 87.4% and 113.52%.

Yet there is indeed a real pressure confronting Citic Securities.

One of the purposes of Guotai Junan’s merger with Haitong Securities was to help Haitong Securities shed risk. Currently, risk de-risking is still ongoing. As risks are gradually carved out, the merged Guotai Haitong’s operating revenue and attributable net profit will also rise step by step.

Take Haitong International as an example, which had suffered losses year after year since 2022. Although its net profit loss in 2025 has narrowed noticeably, it still reached HK$3.268 billion. Because Haitong International’s performance has already been consolidated into Guotai Haitong’s annual report, this means that Haitong International alone reduced Guotai Haitong’s 2025 attributable net profit by roughly 3.0 billion yuan. Meanwhile, Citic Securities’ 2025 attributable net profit was only 2.267 billion yuan higher than Guotai Haitong’s. If Haitong International’s losses were excluded, Guotai Haitong’s 2025 attributable net profit would exceed Citic Securities, becoming the new No. 1 in the securities industry.

In the peak loss year of 2023, Haitong International lost HK$8.156 billion in a single year. Now, as the merged entity’s risks are cleared, Haitong International’s losses have already shrunk by nearly HK$5.0 billion. At this pace, Haitong International’s return to profitability appears just around the corner. And when Haitong International’s attributable net profit turns positive, which company—Citic Securities or Guotai Haitong—has the higher attributable net profit will be difficult to determine.

The crown in investment banking: a tug-of-war between “number of seats” and “scale”

Investment banking business—especially IPO-related business—is traditionally a battleground that every leading brokerage fights for. Citic Securities has long ranked first among A-share IPOs. Before the merger of Guotai Haitong, the performances of Guotai Junan and Haitong Securities in investment banking were also commendable. Citic Securities, the former Guotai Junan and Haitong Securities, as well as CICC, China Securities JianTou, and Huatai Securities—these have long been members of the first-tier group for A-share IPOs.

With the merger of Guotai Haitong, the race for the crown in A-share investment banking has become even fiercer.

Let’s first look at overall investment banking business: operating revenue and profit margin are the two most core comparison dimensions. In both, Citic Securities comes out ahead.

In 2025, Citic Securities’ investment banking business revenue was 6.336 billion yuan, up 50.12% year on year. Guotai Haitong’s corresponding investment banking revenue was 4.657 billion yuan, up 77.62% year on year. Given that 2025 was the first time Guotai Haitong—after the merger—disclosed an annual report, compared to the two, the size of Citic Securities’ increase in investment banking revenue is even more pronounced.

It should be noted that sometimes brokers choose to lower profits to secure more revenue when trying to grab market share—this is particularly evident in the IPO competition in Hong Kong. As a result, investment banking may show a situation where revenue is high but profit margins are limited, the so-called “increase in revenue without an increase in profits,” or “profit growth lagging behind revenue growth.” Profit margin is one of the core indicators for measuring profitability.

In 2024, Citic Securities’ profit margin once fell to 19.42%, a significant difference from Guotai Junan at the time (41.14%). In 2025, the merged Guotai Haitong’s profit margin declined noticeably to just 26.14%; Citic Securities, by contrast, saw its profit margin rise to 36.57% in 2025.

This means Citic Securities’ investment banking profit margin overtook Guotai Haitong, by 10.43 percentage points.

However, Guotai Haitong’s currently low investment banking profit margins are not unrelated to the gradual clearing of risks after the merger. Once those related risks are fully cleared, its investment banking profit margin has room to recover gradually.

From the perspective of sub-sectors within investment banking, Guotai Haitong also holds advantages to some extent.

The most typical four are: 19 A-share IPO bookrunner seats; 44 A-share IPO projects under review at period-end; 37 Hong Kong stock placing companies; and 431 offshore bond underwriting deals by Chinese issuers. For these four figures, Guotai Haitong ranks first.

Especially in the number of A-share IPO bookrunner seats and the number of IPO projects under review at period-end—both are ranked first—meaning Guotai Haitong has a clear advantage in landing deals in A-share IPO business, with strong upside potential for subsequent IPO growth.

Switching viewpoints, when assessing IPO business, the number of underwriting seats and the underwriting scale (amount) are two of the core indicators. In 2025, Guotai Haitong had an advantage in the number of A-share underwriting deals, but Citic Securities outperformed in underwriting scale. According to Wind data (equity underwriting rankings, by issuance date, same meaning as below), in 2025 Citic Securities’ A-share IPO underwriting scale was 23.8 billion yuan, ranking first. Not only was it 4.3 billion yuan more than Guotai Haitong in third place (19.5 billion yuan), it was also 4.1 billion yuan more than China Securities JianTou in second place (19.7 billion yuan).

Because IPO underwriting revenue is closely tied to underwriting scale, this is also the key reason why Citic Securities was not as strong as Guotai Haitong in underwriting seats, but performed better in both investment banking revenue and profit margins.

Another detail worth noting is that after the 827 new regulation in 2023 adjusted the IPO pace in A-shares, many brokers represented by leading firms stepped up their Hong Kong business deployment. As the cycle of investment banking plays out, the effects are increasingly becoming visible.

Looking at Hong Kong investment banking data in 2025, the most notable improvement was for Citic Lyon, Citic Securities’ Hong Kong subsidiary. In 2025, the underwriting amount for Hong Kong IPOs reached 45.107 billion yuan, surpassing strong IPO investment banks in Hong Kong such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and ranking only behind CICC’s Hong Kong subsidiary, CICC International, placing second among all Hong Kong institutions conducting investment banking business. In 2024, Citic Lyon’s IPO underwriting amount ranked third; but in 2022 and 2023, it did not make the industry’s top seven.

The significant improvement in Hong Kong IPO business is also a major driver of Citic Securities’ notable improvement in investment banking performance in 2025.

Comprehensive strength: each excels in its own strengths, hard to tell which is higher

Evaluation criteria among brokerages are all-around. Besides the most watched operating revenue, attributable net profit, and the investment banking area in which leading brokers in the industry compete intensely within their sub-businesses, there are many other comparable dimensions among brokerages. From the perspective of sub-dimensions, Citic Securities and Guotai Haitong rank among the top two in many areas, but it is still difficult to definitively separate them.

Let’s first look at two key indicators: total assets and weighted average ROE.

As of the end of 2025, the top total assets in the securities industry belonged to Guotai Haitong, at 2.11 trillion yuan, which is 30 billion yuan more than Citic Securities (2.08 trillion yuan).

On weighted average ROE, Citic Securities surpassed Guotai Haitong: Citic Securities at 10.59%, Guotai Haitong at 9.78%. A higher weighted average ROE implies better efficiency in shareholder returns.

From sub-sectors of businesses, in wealth management and asset management, the two firms each have their own wins and losses.

Guotai Haitong wins in wealth management. On the main metric used to measure wealth management business revenue—net commission income from brokerage—the figure for Guotai Haitong was 15.138 billion yuan, while Citic Securities was 14.753 billion yuan. Guotai Haitong led by 0.385 billion yuan.

Reporters learned that right at the time when the merger news of Guotai Junan and Haitong Securities was officially announced, Citic Securities conducted a round of surveys and comparisons. One of the businesses it was most concerned about being surpassed in after the comparison was wealth management. Because the merged Guotai Haitong had far more clients and branch offices than Citic Securities, it was difficult for Citic Securities to compete head-to-head with Guotai Haitong in total wealth management business revenue.

However, in terms of the value of financial product holdings, Citic Securities takes the lead. Its figure for 2025 already exceeded 800 billion yuan, while Guotai Haitong was 65.73 billion yuan.

Compared with Guotai Haitong, Citic Securities has fewer domestic clients but higher financial product holdings, meaning Citic Securities likely has larger average client assets and a higher number of high-net-worth clients.

In recent years, securities companies have actively promoted the transformation of wealth management. Its core characteristic is shifting from the traditional “product sales” model to an “investment advisory” model. In the course of this transformation, strengthening the ability to provide comprehensive services for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients has become an important strategic direction for some brokerages. Currently, international investment banks represented by Goldman Sachs and UBS generally treat ultra-high-net-worth clients as their core customer base. By contrast, domestic securities firms still have significant room to improve in their service systems, professional capabilities, and depth of coverage for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients.

In asset management, Citic Securities is better. Its 2025 revenue was 12.177 billion yuan, far exceeding Guotai Haitong’s 6.393 billion yuan.

In terms of managed scale, Citic Securities leads significantly. As of the end of 2025, Citic Securities’ overall asset management scale was approximately 4.8 trillion yuan, the first in the industry. Its controlling subsidiary Huaxia Fund’s management scale was 3.01 trillion yuan. For Guotai Haitong, the asset management scale of Guotai Junan Asset Management was 750.7 billion yuan. In addition, Guotai Haitong controls Hu’An Fund (management scale 814.1 billion yuan) and Haitong Fortune Fund (management scale about 210 billion yuan), and also has a stake in Furong Fund.

In terms of scale comparison, Guotai Haitong’s asset management business volume (including Guotai Junan Asset Management and its controlling fund companies) is about one-third to one-half of Citic Securities—an evident gap.

Beyond that, in proprietary trading business, Citic Securities performed better in 2025, achieving revenue (including fair value changes) of 37.035 billion yuan, which is 12.465 billion yuan more than Guotai Haitong (24.57 billion yuan).

In credit business, Guotai Haitong performed better. Its financing and securities lending balance as of the end of 2025 reached 246.206 billion yuan, setting a record high; the corresponding figure for Citic Securities was 207.652 billion yuan. In terms of net interest income, Guotai Haitong was 8.278 billion yuan, far higher than Citic Securities’ 1.63 billion yuan.

(Author: Cui Wenjing; Editor: Jiang Shiqiang)

Massive information, precise analysis—find it all in the Sina Finance app