When "Cultivating a First-Class Investment Bank" is incorporated into the national plan, how does China International Capital Corporation 3.0 reconstruct its moat?

Ask AI · How can internationalization strategies enhance China International Capital Corporation’s (CICC) global competitiveness?

Text | Ming Yue

China’s capital market is standing at the historic crossroads of moving from a “financial power” to a “financial strong nation.”

In recent years, from the Central Financial Work Conference to the new “National Nine Articles,” and then to the “14th Five-Year Plan,” the repeated emphasis on “cultivating world-class investment banks and investment institutions” sends a strong policy signal. China’s capital market urgently needs “trump card forces” capable of global resource allocation and competing alongside top international investment banks.

Looking across the industry, as a representative institution long benchmarked against “world-class international investment banks,” China International Capital Corporation (CICC) has attracted particular market attention.

On the evening of March 30, CICC released its 2025 performance report, achieving operating revenue of 28.48B yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.50%; net profit of 9.79B yuan, up 71.93%; and a weighted average return on net assets (ROE) of 9.39%, an increase of 3.9 percentage points over the previous year.

When “cultivating top-tier investment banks” rises from an industry vision to a national strategy, this performance report not only reflects the operational performance of a single institution but also carries a deeper test of China’s investment banking development path and institutional capacity. As the “test field” for China’s internationalization exploration of investment banks, where exactly is CICC headed?

【Rooted in the IPO Market】

In the 1990s, China’s financial industry began to dream of building a domestic “world-class international investment bank,” and CICC was born accordingly.

Starting in 1995, the “1.0 phase” of CICC focused on serving state-owned enterprise restructuring and listings, initially establishing an international footprint, with annual revenue growth exceeding 30%. Over the following decades, CICC has remained deeply engaged in the IPO market, experiencing China’s capital market transition from approval-based to registration-based systems.

By 2025, with the implementation of the new “National Nine Articles,” the offshore listing filing process has been fully optimized, with Hong Kong IPO financing surging 226% over the previous year, returning to the top spot globally after six years, and Chinese companies’ overseas financing demands being fully unleashed.

Against this backdrop, a review of CICC’s 2025 annual report reveals that its roots in the IPO market remain clear: investment banking revenue reached 4.6B yuan, a year-on-year increase of 77.95%. It served a total of 56 global IPOs for Chinese companies, raising a total of $26.78B, ranking first in the market.

In terms of specific markets, in the A-share market, in 2025, CICC continued to focus on quality projects, completing 7 A-share IPOs as the lead underwriter, with a principal underwriting amount of 16.24B yuan. Among them, China Power New Energy’s total fundraising of 18.17B yuan was the first mainboard IPO project since the full registration system with a scale over 100 billion yuan. Additionally, as a lead underwriter, CICC completed 18 A-share refinancing projects, with a principal underwriting amount of 460B yuan.

In the Hong Kong market, as a sponsor and lead underwriter, CICC managed 41 Hong Kong IPOs, including CATL’s Hong Kong IPO, where CICC introduced long-term funds, achieving an “zero discount” issuance price. This indicates that amid the sustained hot market, CICC’s bargaining power and underwriting scale advantages have further expanded.

Beyond IPOs, data on institutional business is also noteworthy. In stock business, CICC’s placement scale in Hong Kong ranked first; QFII business has maintained the top position in the industry for 22 consecutive years, and the share of interconnection trading continues to lead among Chinese securities firms, demonstrating CICC’s deep industry accumulation.

Furthermore, CICC has served as the only Chinese investment bank for nine consecutive years to assist the Ministry of Finance in issuing offshore sovereign bonds; its fund assets under management grew by 25% to 273.4 billion yuan; public REITs issuance and operation remain industry-leading; private equity assets under management reached 524.2 billion yuan, heavily investing in fields like semiconductors and AI, injecting financial vitality to empower technological development.

It is worth mentioning that CICC fully leverages the synergy of “investment + investment banking + research,” strengthening business models and product innovation. For example, successfully completed landmark projects such as China Power New Energy, Seres, and Sanhua Intelligent Controls, and became the manager of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei venture capital guiding fund, using professional capabilities to mobilize more patient capital.

This model enables CICC to serve both the capital operations of “big national equipment” and the growth cycles of “specialized, refined, and innovative” enterprises and “unicorns,” becoming a key connector between patient capital and industrial upgrading.

【Strengthening Wealth Management】

Since 2015, CICC has transitioned from 1.0 to 2.0. This transformation was driven by the increasing prominence of small and medium-sized enterprises in the IPO market, which raised higher demands for project screening, risk pricing, and comprehensive services from investment banks.

In 2015, CICC listed in Hong Kong to supplement capital; in 2017, it acquired China Investment Securities, later integrating it into “CICC Wealth,” filling the gaps in retail brokerage and wealth management; in 2020, CICC returned to the A-share market and listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s main board.

Relying on A+H share listings and strengthened wealth management business, CICC gradually built a “dual foundation and six pillars” business structure, achieving a shift from focusing on large institutional clients to covering all business lines.

However, in recent years, the individual pension system has moved from pilot to nationwide, deposit and wealth management yields have continued to decline, low interest rate normalization has become the norm, and reforms in public fund fees have accelerated. The wealth management industry itself is undergoing a transformation: shifting from product sales to asset allocation, from seller to buyer advisory.

CICC Wealth regards client asset retention as a core performance indicator and has developed a “5A asset allocation model,” focusing on client preferences, asset allocation, strategy attribution, excess return exploration, and risk assessment to build its allocation capabilities.

By 2025, CICC’s wealth management profitability has significantly increased, with operating revenue around 9.5 billion yuan, accounting for about one-third of total revenue. The scale of wealth management products has grown positively for six consecutive years to over 4.6 trillion yuan, and the client advisory assets have reached over 1.3 trillion yuan, a record high. Through multi-channel, multi-scenario client acquisition modes, nearly 10 million clients are served, with total client account assets reaching 42.8 trillion yuan.

The annual growth of client advisory products approached 50%, becoming the core engine of CICC Wealth’s scale growth, demonstrating that clients are willing to pay for “professional services.”

【Moving Toward a Top-Tier Investment Bank】

Recently, the “14th Five-Year Plan” explicitly included “cultivating top-tier investment banks and investment institutions” for the first time. However, building a “top-tier investment bank” is not simply about copying international models but about basing it on China’s national conditions, transforming from a “channel service provider” to a “value creator.”

In 2025, CICC will celebrate its 30th anniversary. Standing at this milestone, Chairman Chen Liang proposed the “CICC 3.0” development vision: deepen customer-centric service models, build a more powerful service system for national strategies, improve customer satisfaction, achieve a more balanced business structure, operate more steadily, and lead internationally.

Under this vision, CICC’s strategic path of “rooted in China, connecting the world” becomes increasingly clear—rooted in China as the foundation, connecting with the world as a distinctive feature.

In 2025, CICC continues to intensify its internationalization strategy, serving Chinese enterprises’ “going global” efforts and attracting industrial and financial capital from abroad. It actively participates in overseas listings, bond issuances, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and other cross-border transactions, and continues to make efforts in new fields such as interconnection and global asset allocation. Overseas business revenue increased by 58% year-on-year, accounting for nearly 30% of total revenue.

Specifically, in 2025, CICC established a branch in Dubai International Financial Centre, becoming the first Chinese securities firm to set up a licensed branch overseas. Its international footprint extends from Hong Kong and New York to London, Singapore, and Dubai; completed about $6 billion in Belt and Road-related transactions, attracting over 200 billion yuan of foreign investment into A-shares and Hong Kong stocks; assisted Kazakhstan Development Bank in issuing Central Asia’s first RMB-denominated bonds, promoting RMB internationalization; helped Jaxin International list simultaneously on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Astana International Exchange, becoming a benchmark case for cross-border capital flows.

To further match the capital strength and business capabilities of a top-tier investment bank, in December 2025, CICC initiated major asset reorganizations with Dongxing Securities and Cinda Securities. After completion, the combined strength of these three institutions’ business capabilities, network layout, and client resources will form a powerful synergy, providing more sufficient momentum for CICC’s “3.0” era competition.

From its birth in 1995 as a “system test field” to its current clear strategic vision of “building a top-tier investment bank,” CICC’s thirty years have not only left a series of IPOs marking the times in the capital market but also reflected China’s investment banking transformation from catching up to running alongside, from domestic to global.

Today, competition among investment banks is no longer just resource battles but a comprehensive contest of industry understanding, professional precision, global networks, and technological empowerment.

Who can lead this systemic capability evolution first will secure a place among the world’s top investment banks.

Disclaimer

This article involves content related to listed companies, based on the author’s personal analysis and judgment derived from publicly disclosed information (including but not limited to interim announcements, periodic reports, and official interactive platforms). The information or opinions herein do not constitute any investment or other commercial advice. MarketWatch is not responsible for any actions taken based on this article.

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