Dissecting China International Capital Corporation's 2025 Financial Report: The Flywheel Effect—How to Drive High-Quality Growth?

Ask AI · How does CICC’s flywheel effect reshape competitive dynamics in the investment banking industry?

In 2025, China’s capital markets converge on three main themes: innovation-driven development, further deepening of reforms in the capital market, and the full rollout of individual pension schemes. Together, they point to the three capabilities an investment bank must have—origination-side sourcing of assets, execution-side monetization through transactions, and fund-side allocation.

Meanwhile, the securities industry is undergoing a silent reshuffling. License-driven advantages are fading, and capability-driven advantages are becoming the new dividing line. The old playbook—surviving on a single business line and fighting independently across departments—can no longer sustain the future of a leading institution.

Only institutions that can integrate and run these three capabilities in a unified way truly possess systemic capabilities. Looking across the industry, CICC stands out as a sample that brings “systemic capabilities” to life. It forms an integrated coordination mechanism across “investment + investment banking + research,” like three gears meshing together and generating a “flywheel effect.” Once the flywheel starts turning, it turns faster and faster.

CICC’s 2025 financial results are proof that this “flywheel” is accelerating. Total assets at year-end reached RMB 782.826 billion, up 16.02%; full-year revenue was RMB 28.481 billion, up 33.50%; attributable net profit was RMB 9.791 billion, up 71.93%; and ROE rose from 5.52% to 9.39%.

But the meaning behind these figures goes far beyond growth itself. It’s more like a signal: China’s investment banks are moving from opportunistic strategies toward systemic capabilities.

******** Sourcing Assets: Capturing High-Quality Targets from the Source ********

The policy direction has changed.

In 2025, among the five major policy documents, technology finance and green finance are not just directional advocacy—they also came with hard constraints at the project level and the capital level. The State Council General Office, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and other seven ministries, along with the National Development and Reform Commission, issued documents in succession to clearly state “invest early, invest small, invest long-term, invest in hard-core technology,” and implemented institutional evaluation and management of fund investment directions.

This implies a fundamental shift: competition among financial institutions no longer hinges on who can obtain licenses, but on who can find good assets. The era of conduit services is over; the era of asset sourcing has begun.

Against this backdrop, CICC’s asset-side data is worth watching. In private equity, its assets under management reached RMB 524.2 billion; it has made more than 80 direct investments in technology innovation enterprises, covering core industry chains such as semiconductors, aerospace, AI, and embodied intelligence. Across the whole firm, it completed trading volumes related to technology finance projects of over RMB 1.3 trillion for the year, and trading volumes of green finance projects of over RMB 1.5 trillion.

Behind these numbers is a broader trend: leading brokerages are collectively moving forward toward the asset side. The problem is that, when transitioning from conduit services to asset sourcing, the required capability structure for brokerages changes completely. In the past, the focus was on licenses and channels; now it’s on industry understanding, research capabilities, and capital strength. Many brokerages have become accustomed to marketing and other later-stage businesses, and getting them to proactively source projects at the front end requires rebuilding an entire capability system.

But most of these attempts stall at the hurdle of “investing early and investing small.” This path carries high risk and a long cycle; it tests an institution’s professional judgment and capital patience. Not everyone can make it through. Some use capital scale to “throw money at it,” but project quality varies widely. Some use industrial resources in exchange, but the effectiveness of execution still needs verification. Everyone is experimenting, and relatively few truly run the model successfully.

At the end of the day, the key to “rebuilding a capability system” is not capital and resources, but whether you can connect a closed loop from asset sourcing to service monetization. In other words, can you identify and invest in a project while it’s still just a small seed—and then provide the corresponding services at every stage as it grows?

From CICC’s approach, on the asset side it doesn’t simply “throw money at it.” Instead, it makes investment banking, investment, and research form coordination already in the early stage of projects, building a financial support system that covers technology enterprises across their full life cycle. It aims to address industry challenges: how to connect front-end project sourcing with back-end service monetization, rather than keeping them fragmented.

The effectiveness of this playbook is reflected in the building of its service system. For example, the financial report shows that, with the “Jinhe Plan” as its promoted brand and the “Specialized, Refined, Unique, and Innovative” comprehensive product package as the key offering, by the end of 2025 it had cumulatively covered about 8,800 specialized, refined, unique, and innovative enterprises. The projects sourced at the front end have achieved standardized service handoff.

This is the direction that leading brokerages are exploring: push the service chain forward, lock in high-quality assets with integrated capabilities, instead of waiting for enterprises to grow before going after deals. Of course, whether the path can be made to work depends on each institution’s investment in building its capability system and its patience.

Asset-side accumulation ultimately needs to be monetized on the execution side, and this is another new turn of events.

******** Monetizing Assets: Grabbing the Golden Window of the Capital Markets ********

The rules of the game on the execution side are being rewritten.

In 2025, capital market reforms entered deep water. After the new “Nine Rules” were implemented, the overseas listing filing process was comprehensively optimized, and the corporate listing channel was significantly improved. Hong Kong IPOs subsequently warmed up, with financing scale up 226% year over year, returning to first place globally after six years. The demand for overseas financing by Chinese enterprises is also concentrating and releasing—this is not limited to large state-owned enterprises; more and more private companies are beginning to consider overseas listings.

Taken together, these changes impose new requirements on investment banks. In the past, when investment banks handled Hong Kong IPOs, they were often more of a conduit role. Now, pricing capability, underwriting capability, and cross-border capability are evolving from value-added factors into mandatory requirements. This change tests whether investment banks can shift from a single underwriting role to offering more comprehensive services—many institutions need to make up a lot of “courses.”

Against this backdrop, market attention has turned to CICC’s execution-side data—income for the investment banking business segment was RMB 4.597 billion, up 77.95%; overseas business income was RMB 8.393 billion, up 58.11%, with its share rising to 29.5%. In the Hong Kong market, as the sponsor and lead underwriter for 41 IPO projects, CICC’s lead underwriting scale was USD 7.900 billion, ranking first in the market. It completed benchmark projects such as CATL, Seres, and Trina Zhikong.

Behind these figures is the reflection of the rise of Chinese investment banks in the Hong Kong market. In recent years, the market share of Chinese investment banks in Hong Kong has kept increasing, while the advantages of foreign investment banks have narrowed. Leading Chinese brokerages are all trying to deepen their focus on the execution side. But this path is not one everyone can walk. Some rely on price competition to grab projects, compressing profit margins. Some rely on relationships to secure deals, raising questions about long-term sustainability. Everyone is experimenting, and few truly establish comprehensive service capabilities.

At bottom, the key to monetizing assets is not the number of projects, but whether you can provide enterprises with comprehensive support. Beyond underwriting services, can you bring in capital to participate in cornerstone investments? Can you provide persuasive pricing analysis? Can you coordinate cross-market resources and networks?

In CICC’s approach, several cases illustrate the point. For CATL’s Hong Kong IPO, during the underwriting process CICC introduced a long-term fund, enabling the issue price to have “zero discount,” which is not common in Hong Kong IPOs. In the case of introducing AstraZeneca’s strategic investment into BeiGene Pharma (or “Bai Pu Yi Yao”), CICC served as exclusive financial advisor, testing its judgment of industry trends and its precise grasp of both sides’ needs. The two-market synchronized listing of Jiaxin International Resources—Hong Kong and Kazakhstan—tests international network coverage capability.

Beyond projects, there are also some baseline metrics worth noting. The financial report indicates that CICC ranked first in the market in Hong Kong stock placement scale. Its QFII business has ranked first in the market for 22 consecutive years. Its connect-and-transact trading share has continued to lead among Chinese brokerages, and it has covered more than 15,000 investors across domestic and overseas markets. These are not achievements of individual projects, but the result of long-term accumulation.

On the execution side, going beyond being a mere conduit and using integrated capabilities to serve enterprises—making the “monetization of assets” deeper and more thorough—is precisely the direction that leading brokerages are exploring. Whether the model works depends on each institution’s accumulation in areas such as pricing capability and cross-border capability.

Once a deal is completed, that is only a transfer stage in the value flow. The securities and cash that get monetized ultimately need an exit for allocation, and investment banks then face yet another set of changes.

**** Allocating Assets: Standing at the Forefront of the Wealth Management Transformation ****

The logic of wealth management is being rewritten.

In 2025, the wealth management industry is undergoing profound changes. The individual pension system is moving from pilot programs to nationwide implementation. Residents’ retirement reserves can no longer rely only on social security; they also need to manage and allocate their own assets. With low interest rates becoming the norm, deposit and wealth management product yields continue to fall, prompting residents to look for new investment directions. Public fund fee reforms are also accelerating, and the industry is shifting from a “scale-driven” approach to a “customer-interest-driven” one.

With these changes stacked together, wealth management institutions are pushed to complete a fundamental transformation: moving from selling products to building allocations; moving from sell-side sales to buy-side investment advisory. After all, the essence of wealth management is “serving people,” with the core being to understand and meet customers’ true, long-term needs. The key is not channel advantages—it’s whether you can truly stand on the customer’s side and use systemic capabilities to help customers allocate assets.

This transformation sounds easy but is hard to execute. It’s difficult because of the incentive mechanisms: in the past, institutions made money by selling products for commissions; now they need to charge service fees, with customer returns as the performance metric. It’s hard because of the capability structure: shifting from laying channels to asset allocation requires rebuilding capabilities. It’s hard because of path dependency: changing course after more than a decade of momentum is not trivial, and resistance is substantial. Many institutions still remain in a sell-side mindset.

CICC’s choice is to go down another road. It uses customer asset custody volume as the core evaluation standard, and advisory income is linked to customer asset appreciation—this is fundamentally different from the traditional sell-side model driven by commissions. The rollout of this logic is supported by a set of methodology— the “5A allocation model,” which builds allocation capability across five dimensions: customer preferences, asset allocation, strategy attribution, deeper extraction of excess returns, and risk assessment.

From the outcomes, the financial report shows that in CICC Wealth Management, its product custody scale has grown year over year for six consecutive years, reaching more than RMB 460 billion. Among them, the buy-side advisory transformation has been particularly effective: product custody volume exceeding RMB 130 billion hit a new historical high. Through an omni-channel, multi-scenario customer acquisition model, it serves nearly 10 million customers, with total customer account assets of RMB 4.28 trillion.

Technology investment is also playing a role. CICC is accelerating the AI transformation of its APP, launching a Q&A and intelligent agent-style advisory assistant. On the online wealth management side, cumulative AUM added more than RMB 10 billion. In the future, whoever can truly integrate technology with its own business is more likely to get ahead.

This transformation in the wealth management industry is reshaping the competitive landscape. The direction is clear, but whether it will achieve results depends on each firm’s determination—it’s not something that can be done overnight.

**** Conclusion ****

Under the new industry conditions, from sourcing assets to monetizing assets and then allocating assets, each step tests the new capabilities of investment banks. This is not a proposition for CICC alone, but a shared challenge facing the entire industry.

While the industry is still competing on licenses and channels, some leading institutions have already started competing on systems and coordination. For an investment bank, the real moat is not leadership in any single business, but the systemic capability that links multiple capabilities together and lets them support one another.

With that, the “growth flywheel” will turn faster and faster.