Trust equity frequently listed "on the shelf," difficult to find buyers at a discount

Trust company equity transfers are once again stuck in a bind of “even with a discount, they are hard to sell.” Recently, information from the Beijing Equity Exchange shows that the 100% equity of New Era Trust has been listed for transfer again, with the transfer reserve price cut to 1.19B yuan, only about half of the reserve price from its first listing in 2022. At the same time, the 0.826% equity of China Railway Trust has also been re-priced and listed for transfer at a lower price, but no intended transferee has been found.

So far this year, equity of multiple trust companies has been put “on the shelf,” but buyers are scarce. Industry insiders said that under multiple pressures, including tighter industry regulation, risk clean-up and business transformation, the valuation of trust company equity has continued to decline, and the willingness of institutions to take over has generally remained low. In the future, the value of trust company equity will be directly tied to factors such as business quality and transformation capability.

Transfer by Listing of 100% Equity

Specifically, the New Era Trust’s 6 billion shares listed for transfer in this round correspond to its 100% equity. The transfer reserve price is 1.19B yuan, about half of the reserve price of the first listing in 2022. The consideration will be paid in installments. After intended transferees have fully understood the information about the transfer asset, they should submit transfer application materials and, at the same time, pay a 356 million yuan transaction deposit into a designated bank account.

This is not the first time New Era Trust has transferred equity. In 2022, its 100% equity was first listed on the Beijing Equity Exchange for transfer, at that time with a reserve price of 2.31B yuan. In May 2024, the reserve price for that equity transfer was lowered to 1.85B yuan. In 2025 and 2026, the equity was again put “on the shelf,” with the listing price continuing to be discounted, but still no one took it.

The details page for this equity transfer shows that New Era Trust has four shareholders—New Era Vision (Beijing) Investment Co., Ltd., Shanghai Ren Guang Industrial Development Co., Ltd., Weifang Kewei Investment Co., Ltd., and Baotou City Xinding Sheng Trading Co., Ltd.—and this transfer involves all equity.

In 2020, New Era Trust was placed under receivership. The receivership period was extended in accordance with law. As of the time this reporter’s story was published, the company’s annual report was still stuck at the 2019 fiscal year.

Regarding transferee qualification requirements, according to the transfer announcement, after completion of this equity transfer, the transferee needs to commit to cooperating with and causing the target company to cooperate with the risk resolution work of New Era Trust in accordance with requirements from regulatory authorities. In addition, the transferee should fully understand the function and positioning of a trust company, the essence of trust business and risk characteristics, as well as the shareholder responsibilities and obligations it should assume.

The “Administrative Measures for Trust Companies,” which took effect in January of this year, provides that shareholders of trust companies must contribute with legally owned funds and may not use non-owned funds such as entrusted funds or debt funds to take equity in. They may not make false capital contributions, make roundabout contributions, withdraw capital contributions, or withdraw capital contributions in disguise.

Few Are Willing to Take Over

China Railway Trust is also conducting equity transfers in the near term. Information from the Beijing Equity Exchange shows that the transfer reserve price for China Railway Trust’s 0.826% equity is 90.5016 million yuan, down by about 10% from the last transfer price. The transferor is Panzhigang Group Chengdu Steel Co., Ltd., and the information disclosure end date is April 13.

In recent years, equity of many trust companies—including China Credit Trust, Huaxin Trust, and Northern Trust—has been listed for transfer on local property rights exchange platforms, but most deals have not been completed due to lack of bids. An industry insider told this reporter: “The auction results for trust company equity may be poor or end in failed auctions; they need to be viewed differently. Some are in the process of resolving risks, such as New Era Trust; others are subject to regulatory requirements to return to their original mission and focus on their core business, such as China Railway Trust. The outcome is mostly a failed auction, which is related to the fact that the trust industry is currently in a business transformation and risk clean-up stage, along with strong and strict regulation, resulting in an overall decline in the valuation of trust company equity.”

Yu Zhi, a research analyst at Yiyong Trust, believes that at present the trust industry is under multiple pressures such as tighter regulation, risk clean-up, and business transformation; the industry’s profit logic has undergone fundamental changes, the uncertainty in the value of trust company equity is relatively high, and institutions’ willingness to take over is low. “In the future, the equity value of trust companies may be directly tied to factors such as operating quality and transformation capability,” he said.

Looking for New Growth Points for Profitability

Zhou Xiaoming, an expert director of the China Trust Association, said that since 2018, affected by changes in the market environment and adjustments to regulatory policies, trust companies have entered a stage of transformation and development. While clearing and compressing traditional businesses (financing trusts and channel trusts), they have actively expanded trust businesses rooted in the trust’s original mission.

This can be seen from changes in industry scale. The total trust assets size across the industry fell from a high of 2.625 trillion yuan at the end of 2017 to 2.049 trillion yuan at the end of 2020, with a decline of 21.94% over three years (from 2018 to 2020). As the industry gradually clarified its own positioning and accelerated the return to its original-mission businesses, the trust asset size began to stabilize and rebound in 2021, and then grew steadily. As of the end of June 2025, the balance of total trust assets in the entire industry was 3.243 trillion yuan.

Against the backdrop of industry transformation, both challenges and opportunities coexist. On one hand, business is difficult to do: the business model sustainability of many new businesses needs to be verified, and in the short term the costs such as systems investment are hard to match with return on benefits. A business person from a trust company that manages trust assets on the scale of a thousand billion yuan told this reporter: “We hope to carry out businesses that can quickly scale up. The prerequisite is that we need to build the systems first, and we also have to take compliance risks. Slowly you’ll find that this business is hard to do; industry competition is severe, and fees have been pushed very low by everyone.” He added that a relatively better operating model at present is to develop new businesses by leveraging shareholders’ resource endowments, increasing the frequency of roadshows, and seeking new business growth points.

On the other hand, there are opportunities. Taking prepayment-type funds service trusts as an example, a person from a leading trust company said that prepayment-type funds service trusts have many points of alignment with other types of trust business. They can create multi-point linkage synergies with businesses such as family trusts, marketable asset management, and wealth management, further expanding the application scenarios of service trusts and allowing commercial value to be further realized.