Bank wealth management companies pursue dual-track gold mining in IPOs

Against the backdrop of the ongoing decline in yields of traditional fixed-income assets—an “asset shortage” (asset scarcity) situation—bank wealth management firms are turning their focus to a dual-track IPO strategy in both A-shares and H-shares. On one side, the Hong Kong IPO market features strong momentum, with healthy supply and demand; multiple wealth management firms have moved to set up positions, taking cornerstone investor roles to heavily invest in strategic sectors such as semiconductors and new energy. On the other side, the A-share offline IPOs have also been active, with wealth management firms frequently appearing on the allocation lists. In the view of industry analysts, the underlying driver is a “yield breakthrough” under the pressure of “asset shortage.” With a three-way convergence of market opportunities, policy tailwinds, and demonstration effects from leading institutions, IPO investing is shifting from an experiment by a small number of early participants to an industry-wide consensus.

Breaking Through Yields Under the “Asset Shortage”

The fever for listings in Hong Kong continues to rise. According to data from the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), the total funds raised from initial public offerings in the first four months of 2026 reached HKD 151.4 billion, up 604% year over year. The heat in the Hong Kong IPO market remains high.

With the Hong Kong IPO market staying hot, this investment opportunity has also quickly attracted the attention of bank wealth management firms. Many institutions have stepped up their deployment efforts, with their focus on strategic emerging sectors such as semiconductors, technology manufacturing, and frontier technology.

Specifically, the deployment efforts by leading wealth management firms are particularly prominent. In a disclosure made on April 28, ICBC Wealth Management stated that it had cumulatively participated in 16 Hong Kong IPO investments within the year to date; it had achieved a 100% entry success rate, and its investment-weighted return has even surpassed 100%. The company also participated in six key IPO projects in depth as a cornerstone investor, with key coverage of core national strategic sectors such as semiconductors, new energy, and high-end manufacturing. The investee targets include GigaDevice, Han’s Laser, Guanghe Technology, Sige New Energy, Changguang Chenxin, and Xizhi Technology, among others.

Postal Savings Wealth Management has also stepped in multiple times—for example, it has made heavy cornerstone placements in TDSC (Lanshi Technology) and HOWEI (HaoWei Group), and has also been involved in Guo’en Technology, MINIMAX, and Biren Technology. Notably, MINIMAX surged 109.09% on its first day of listing, and Biren Technology rose 75.82% on its first day of listing.

Investment appetite is not limited to Hong Kong stocks either. Wealth management firms are also accelerating their deployment of A-share offline IPO allocations. In May, in the list of preliminary A-share offline allotment results for companies such as Tinhai Electronics and Vituoli, products under Xingyin Wealth Management and Ningyin Wealth Management appeared multiple times and successfully secured admission through valid bids.

From an industry perspective, the dual-track IPO strategy that wealth management firms are now deploying across A-shares and H-shares has already taken shape: one side is heavy cornerstone investment in Hong Kong IPOs, anchoring high-quality STAR Market-style (science and technology innovation) targets; the other side is expanding A-share offline IPO allocations to build thicker portfolio returns.

Why have wealth management firms started to increasingly favor the equity market? Wu Zewei, a special research fellow at Suzhou Business Bank, analyzed that the root lies in the “yield breakthrough” under pressure from the “asset shortage.” He pointed out that by 2025, the average return of wealth management products across the entire market had fallen to less than 2%, while the space for traditional fixed-income assets continued to narrow, forcing institutions to seek a breakthrough through higher-yield strategies. In March 2025, the China Securities Regulatory Commission included bank wealth management products as priority allotment objects for IPOs, opening an institutional window for this path. At a deeper level, this signals that wealth management firms are making a systemic shift from purely fixed-income exposure to “fixed income +” and multi-asset strategies; hybrid products are precisely the main battlefield for the current transition. Under the three-way resonance of market opportunities, policy tailwinds, and demonstration effects from leading institutions, IPO investing is evolving from exploration by a few pioneers into an industry-wide consensus.

How Can Wealth Management IPO Investing Be More Stable

So, does the performance of ICBC Wealth Management—“100% entry success rate” and “investment-weighted return exceeding 100%”—have market-wide representativeness? Zhou Yiqin, a senior expert in financial regulatory policy, said plainly that such high returns are partly because ICBC Wealth Management, as a leading institution, has advantages in talent teams and resources; on the other hand, they also have to do with coordination with a relatively favorable market environment and high-quality targets.

When asked what kind of returns such IPO strategies bring to wealth management products under normal conditions, Zhou Yiqin said that the extent to which returns are boosted for fixed income + and hybrid wealth management products depends on the investment proportion. Generally, if the allocation ratio is 5%—10%, it can usually bring an annualized return enhancement of 1%—2.5%, but volatility will also be amplified in parallel. For clients, this can strengthen return competitiveness in a low interest-rate environment and aligns with demand for “stability + value-added.”

However, from a higher-dimensional perspective, bank wealth management IPO investing is not necessarily a trouble-free path. Wu Zewei analyzed that the Hong Kong stock market’s post-offering price decline rate has exceeded 30% in recent years, and cornerstone investments have a six-month lock-up period—creating an inherent tension between liquidity constraints and the redemption features of wealth management products that have periodic subscription/redemption openings. Exchange-rate risk is also something that cannot be ignored: principal and interest payments for cross-border investments are denominated in HKD. Second, traditional fixed-income teams at wealth management firms often lack sufficient penetration into technological barriers of technology enterprises, industry cycles, and overseas compliance risks, leading to relatively weak pricing capability. Third, cornerstone investment in Hong Kong stocks involves cross-border investment qualifications and capital outflow processes, which are more complex and can also be affected by less smooth outsourced channels. Finally, investor education generally lags; some clients mistakenly treat IPO investing as risk-free arbitrage, which can trigger reputation-risk hazards.

In response, Wu Zewei suggested that if the long-term development of a dual-track “A-shares + Hong Kong stocks” IPO plan is pushed forward in the future, in product design one should adhere to the core structure of “stable core holdings + excess optionality.” IPO positions should be kept within a reasonable proportion, and necessary holding periods should be set to match the cornerstone investment lock-up period requirements; product risk ratings should be tightly matched with investor suitability. In terms of investment research capabilities, efforts should be made to accelerate the introduction of equity research talent, build a cross-market framework for new share pricing, reduce passive reliance on external ratings, and establish a full-process investment research system covering everything from project screening, valuation and pricing to exit decision-making. On the risk-control side, the mechanism should strengthen constraints on single-stock concentration, industry concentration, and overall position limits, and conduct extreme-market stress tests on a regular basis.

Beijing Business Daily reporters: Meng Fanxia and Zhou Yili

(Editor: Qian Xiaorui)

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