Investment returns exceed 150 billion yuan! China Ping An General Manager Xie Yonglin: Optimistic about China's stock market, and will adhere to balanced allocation

Data is a treasure

Data is a treasure

Investing with less worry

Under the policy guidance of increasing medium- and long-term capital market entry, large insurance companies are taking concrete actions to implement it, achieving growth in investment returns and significant improvement in operational performance.

By 2025, Ping An of China will achieve a net profit attributable to the parent company’s shareholders of 143.77B yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.5%, setting a new record high. Benefiting from rising financial asset investment returns, the company realized an investment income of 152.86B yuan, an increase of 82.8% year-on-year, becoming one of the core drivers of profit growth.

Ping An of China’s General Manager and Co-CEO Xie Yonglin said in an exclusive interview with Securities Times that he is optimistic about the long-term growth potential of China’s stock market. In 2026, the company will continue to adhere to a balanced allocation strategy that emphasizes both growth sectors represented by new quality productivity and low-valuation, high-dividend sectors. On the basis of allocating high-dividend sectors as a ballast stone, the company will explore opportunities in hot sectors such as technology, while also paying attention to investment opportunities in pro-cyclical and consumer industries.

Optimistic about the long-term growth space of the stock market

As of the end of 2025, Ping An’s insurance fund investment portfolio reached 6.49 trillion yuan, a 13.2% increase from the beginning of the year. Along with the significant growth in investment assets, Ping An significantly increased its proportion of equity assets investment last year.

Data shows that by the end of 2025, the balance of stock and equity fund investments reached 1.24 trillion yuan, a net increase of over 750 billion yuan from the end of 2024, accounting for 19.2% of the investment assets, up 9.3 percentage points from the end of 2024.

Xie Yonglin stated that he is optimistic about the long-term growth space of China’s stock market. During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, China will improve its characteristic market stabilization mechanisms, enrich cross-cycle counter-cyclical adjustment methods and mechanisms, and the intrinsic stability of China’s equity market is continuously strengthening. Some high-quality assets already possess significant medium- and long-term investment value and strategic allocation opportunities.

The use of insurance funds pursues long-term stable returns, balancing safety, liquidity, and yield, emphasizing the rational matching of assets and liabilities in terms of yield, maturity, and liquidity. Last year, Ping An increased its balanced layout of dividend value-oriented and technology growth-oriented equity investments, achieving steady investment returns that outperformed the market.

Xie Yonglin said that in 2026, the company will continue to adhere to a balanced allocation strategy emphasizing both growth sectors represented by new quality productivity and low-valuation, high-dividend sectors. On the basis of allocating high-dividend sectors as a ballast, the company will explore opportunities in hot sectors such as technology, while also paying attention to investment opportunities in pro-cyclical and consumer industries.

“The company will actively explore the potential of the equity market, and under effective risk control, scientifically and dynamically optimize and adjust the proportion of equity asset allocation,” said Xie Yonglin.

Proactively layout strategic emerging industries

“Anchoring to national strategic directions ensures that development paths will not deviate,” said Xie Yonglin when discussing how insurance funds, as typical long-term capital, can further support the development of China’s capital markets.

Xie Yonglin told Securities Times that Ping An’s investment layout resonates with the national strategic development directions, actively deploying in strategic emerging industries. The company’s key focus areas will revolve around national strategic priorities, including integrated circuits, aerospace, biomedicine, low-altitude economy, new energy storage, and intelligent robots, as well as six future industries: quantum technology, biomanufacturing, hydrogen energy and nuclear fusion, brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence, and the sixth-generation mobile communications.

Currently, Ping An is actively investing through private equity (PE) to layout new quality productivity, with underlying portfolios covering GPUs, robots, next-generation semiconductors, brain-computer interfaces, and more.

Regarding the high growth and high risk characteristics of tech innovation enterprises, Xie Yonglin said that insurance funds need to have in-depth insights into the industries and technological upgrade routes of invested companies, strengthen internal expertise, and solve evaluation difficulties.

From Ping An’s perspective, on one hand, the company is cultivating a hybrid team with both industry background and financial expertise; on the other hand, it is extensively connecting with external scientists, engineers, and industry experts to continuously improve risk assessment models, fundamentally solving the dilemmas of “not understanding, not being able to evaluate accurately, and not daring to invest.”

To stay updated on industry trends, Ping An regularly invites industry experts to exchange ideas with investment teams, covering fields such as energy, quantum technology, semiconductors, and biomedicine.

Xie Yonglin believes that insurance funds should collaborate with government-guided funds, PE/VC institutions, and industry leaders to provide comprehensive support for invested enterprises—from policy support and financial financing to market connection. By effectively aggregating capital, industry, and policy resources, more tech startups can grow and succeed. This not only enhances the investment returns of insurance funds but also is a necessary way to strengthen full-process risk management.

Valuations of insurance companies will diverge

In 2025, the insurance sector was the most eye-catching in the A-share market, completely reversing previous years’ downturns and entering a strong cyclical upward phase. The insurance index rose over 30% for the year, and Ping An’s stock price also returned to recent highs.

Regarding last year’s performance of insurance stocks, Xie Yonglin believes that the rise in stock prices was not overvaluation but a “valuation repair,” driven mainly by regulatory support, market strength, and company efforts.

First, regulatory dividends were fully released, with the implementation of a dynamic reserve interest rate adjustment mechanism, pushing liability costs into the “1” range, easing the risk of interest margin losses from the source; the “reporting and operation integration” effectively curbed vicious competition over channels, guiding the industry toward rational operation; the Ministry of Finance’s long-term assessment and the reduction of stock investment risk factors encouraged insurance funds to “long-term investment,” bringing in over 64.9k yuan of incremental market funds.

Second, asset-side yield elasticity was fully demonstrated. In 2025, the A-share market improved, and equity asset yields significantly rebounded, directly increasing the net profit and net assets of insurance companies.

Meanwhile, insurance companies seized the dividend window, actively adjusting product structures. Major insurers shifted towards dividend insurance, significantly reducing the rigid costs of new policies.

Ping An’s stock performance last year notably outperformed the insurance sector index and most peers. Xie Yonglin attributes this mainly to four core reasons: first, Ping An vigorously promoted the “comprehensive finance + medical and elderly care” dual-driven ecosystem, whose differentiated advantages are gradually emerging; second, through “products + services,” Ping An greatly promoted the sales of high-value policies and enhanced customer stickiness via its medical and elderly care health ecosystem, achieving cost control; third, the life insurance reform started early, and after painful “clearing虚虚” and transformation pains, the reform dividends from team and product transformation are gradually being released; fourth, Ping An established a long-term stable dividend mechanism, with an average dividend rate over the past five years ranking first in the industry. In the context of “asset scarcity,” this bond-like stable cash flow attribute makes Ping An a key target for long-term capital allocation.

Xie Yonglin said that for Ping An, the effectiveness of its medical strategy empowering its core financial business has already shown, but there is still room for stock price growth.

He also believes that in the future, the valuation of insurance stocks will show significant divergence. Companies that can truly stand out need to possess two core capabilities: on the liability side, they must maintain stable operations, diversified product structures, and excellent cost control; on the investment side, they need to balance stability and flexibility, adhering to a long-term value orientation. Only through coordinated efforts on both ends can they establish advantages amid differentiation.

Overall industry outlook, Xie Yonglin is quite confident. First, life insurance remains in a golden development cycle, with health insurance poised for a new wave of growth, as residents’ protection and wealth management demands continue to release, creating new blue oceans and providing long-term growth momentum for liabilities; second, China’s economic vitality and resilience create favorable conditions for insurance funds’ diversified investments in equities and alternative assets; third, rapid AI development is reshaping the insurance value chain, with technological empowerment effectively improving operational efficiency and reducing comprehensive costs, opening new profit growth space for the industry.

Xie Yonglin also believes that the insurance industry is shifting from “homogeneous expansion” to “structural differentiation,” entering an era of “professional-driven” development. “Although life insurance is still in a golden growth cycle, higher requirements are being placed on product capabilities and service quality. Industry growth momentum is shifting from reliance on channels and demographic dividends to dependence on precise product pricing and ecosystem service integration,” he said.

Source: Securities Times

Disclaimer: All information from Data Treasure does not constitute investment advice. The stock market involves risks; invest cautiously.

Editor: Lin Lifeng