– Firmly Focused on the Main Responsibilities and Business
– With Continuous Improvement of Comprehensive Strength and Acceleration of High-quality Development
GF Securities Co., Ltd. (GF Securities or the Company, together with its subsidiaries within the scope of its consolidated financial statements (subsidiaries), the Group; HKSE: 1776; SZSE: 000776) announced its interim results for the six months ended 30 August 2024 (the Reporting Period). During the Reporting Period, under the guidance of the Board of Directors, the management of the Company led all staff to carry out key work to focus on enhancing core business capabilities, cultivating new quality competitiveness, improving comprehensive service capabilities and boosting resource allocation efficiency, as a result of which, the Company’s operating results achieved stable development with a total revenue and other income of RMB17,136 million, and a net profit attributable to owners of the Company of RMB4,362 million. As of 30 June, 2024, the Group’s total asset amounted to RMB689,328 million, representing an increase of 1.05 % as compared to the end of 2023 ; and equity attributable to owners of the Company amounted to RMB140,703 million, representing an increase of 3.67% as compared to the end of 2023.
As one of the first batch of pilot comprehensive management brokerages selected by the CSRC, GF Securities possesses licenses for a full range of services involved in four business segments, including investment banking, wealth management, trading and institution, and investment management. The Group has successively set up futures subsidiaries, public fund subsidiaries, private fund subsidiaries, alternative investment subsidiaries and asset management subsidiaries. With its unique value concept and pragmatic entrepreneurial style, the Company has built up a full-service chain with comprehensive layout and strong strength. In respect of regional development, the Company based in Guangdong and serves the whole country, connecting domestically and internationally, forges a leading national brokerage with a long-term vision and an open mind. Against this backdrop, the Company has maintained main operating indicators ranking among the top securities companies in China for many consecutive years, and established its leading advantages in various key business segments.
Wealth Management Business Continues to Lead under Ongoing and Deepening Transformation
The Company has taken the lead in proposing wealth management transformation and has currently been equipped with excellent financial product research, sales capabilities and professional asset allocation capabilities. The Company had more than 4,400 securities investment advisors, ranking No. 1 in the industry (in terms of parent company caliber), striving to provide precise wealth management services to different clients.
In the first half of 2024, the Company focused on strengthening the construction of investment research and professional investment & advisory service capabilities, continuing to build a differentiated product and service supply system, and promote the transformation of wealth management business into an investor-oriented buy-side investment advisory business to enhance investors’ sense of gain. In the domestic market, as of the end of June 2024, the total balance of financial products sold by the Company on a commission basis exceeded RMB220 billion, representing an increase of 4.00% as compared to the end of last year while the sales amount of financial products on the Yitaojin E-commerce platform (including Cash Return and Taojin Market amounted to RMB116.918 billion. In the overseas market, the Group further diversified its product offerings and continued to transform into wealth management with net sales income and balance of financial products and commissions for multi-market transactions achieving a year-on-year growth. In addition, the market share (in terms of trading volume and trading amount of futures) of GF Futures, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the Group, achieved year-on-year growth. GF Futures (Hong Kong) was awarded the Most Active Chinese Commodity Futures Broker of 2023 by the Singapore Exchange.
At the end of June 2024, the Company had 356 branches and business departments nationwide, with a presence in 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across the PRC. The number and coverage ratio of business outlets in the nine cities of the Pearl River Delta in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area ranked No. 1 in the industry, providing a wide range of market reach for the Company’s business and laying important support for customer accumulation and service.
Continuous Development of Insitutional Business with Outstanding Research Capabilies Empowerment
The Company actively seizes the opportunities of reform on the investment, financing and trading, gives full play to the role of research in empowering and promoting the Company’s core business, integrates resources to provide comprehensive solutions for institutional customers, improves institutional customer service capabilities and institutional customer service systems, and continues to expand institutional business.
In the first half of 2024, the market-making business of the Company continued to be in the first echelon of the market, providing market-making services for more than 700 funds and all ETF options of the SSE and SZSE, and market-making services for CSI 300 stock index options and CSI 1000 stock index options of the China Financial Futures Exchange. The Company issued 44,559 private equity products through the China Securities Inter-agency Quotation System and OTC market, with a total amount of RMB338.330 billion. The Company became the lead market maker for stock index options of the China Financial Futures Exchange, and was granted the SSE’s 2023 Stock Option Market Development Contribution Award (Outstanding Option Market Maker Award and Contribution to New Option Varieties Award), the SZSE’s 2023 Outstanding ETF Liquidity Provider Award and Outstanding Option Market Maker Award, and the CFFEX’s 2023 Outstanding Stock Index Option Market Maker Award (Bronze Award). As the end of June 2024, the Company provided market-making services to 47 NEEQ enterprises while its bond market-making business created the “GF Securities Pearl River Delta ESG Sustainable Development Local Debt Basket ” to help market institutions actively participate in the green economy construction and sustainable development in the Pearl River Delta through portfolio investment.
At the same time, as a primary dealer of OTC derivatives business with professional advantages in derivatives pricing and trading, the Company continued to strengthen the construction of team and system, enhanced product creation, strategy innovation and trading and sales capabilities, and diversified and expanded its product system, types of underlying products and revenue structure, so as to continuously provide institutional customers with asset allocation and risk management solutions through OTC derivatives.
The Group continued to promote the research-driven business model and gave full play to the empowerment and promotion effect of research on the Company’s core business. As of the end of June 2024, the Group’s equity research covered 28 industries and 993 A-share listed companies in mainland China, and 154 Hong Kong and overseas listed companies. The Company achieved research results based on digital means such as GF research portal and mini programs, continued to explore in the direction of intelligence, and strived to build a multiplatform, multi-channel and multi-dimensional customer service system. During the Reporting Period, the industrial research institute of the Company continued to build an ecosystem of production, learning, research, investment and financial integration, empowered the development of various business segments, provided research support for policy formulation and industrial planning of government departments, and explored the establishment of industrial incubation and transformation cooperation mechanism with key scientific research universities to play a role as a bridge of “technology-finance-industry.
The outstanding research capacity of the Company enjoys a high reputation in the industry and received numerous honors. The Company has received the New Fortune Domestic Best Research Teams and the New Fortune Most Influential Research Institution for consecutive years from 2017 to 2023, and Top 5 Golden Bull Research Institution award by China Securities Industry Analyst Golden Bull Award for consecutive years. Meanwhile, it ranked in the forefront in the selection of Sell-side Analyst Crystal Ball Award , Best Analyst of Shanghai Securities News, the Golden Kirin Best Analyst of Sina Finance and the Gold Analysts of the 21st Century .
Continuous Improvement of Investment Banking Business with Outstanding Functionalities
Guided by customer demand, the Company has built an investment banking service system with a full business chain throughout the life cycle. During the Reporting Period, the Company actively implemented the national strategies and regulatory policies by adhering to the fundamental purpose of serving the real economy with finance and giving priority to functionality; focused on serving the development of new productive forces and national strategic emerging industries by deeply exploring “specialized, sophisticated, distinctive and innovative” enterprises and effectively fulfilled its responsibility as a “gatekeeper” in the capital market.
In respect of domestic equity financing, as of the end of June 2024, the Company sponsored 43 companies listed on the NEEQ as the lead brokerage, of which 76.74% were “specialized, sophisticated, distinctive and innovative” enterprises. In respect of overseas equity financing, the Company completed two Hong Kong IPO projects including one IPO project as a sponsor with an issue size of HK$1.046 billion, ranking third in the market; completed two refinancing projects with an underwritten amount of HK$4.881 billion; and its equity financing business in Hong Kong ranked third among Chinese-based securities companies in terms of the total issuance size of IPOs and refinancing projects equally distributed among all underwriters, according to the statistics of Dealogic.
In respect of bond and financing business, the Company attached great importance to serving national strategies and facilitated technological innovation enterprises to develop new productive forces; steadily enhanced its market position through leveraging the Group’s synergistic advantages, consistently expanding key regions, strengthening internal assessment mechanism and other measures, on the basis of a strict control of business development risk; and actively practices ESG to promote the green and lowcarbon development through bond and financing business. During the Reporting Period, the Company acted as the lead underwriter for 293 tranches of bonds, representing a year-on-year increase of 70.35%, with a lead underwritten amount of RMB152.428 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 64.63%; acted as the lead underwriter for 52 tranches of various science and technology innovation bonds with an underwritten amount of RMB19.128 billion; and acted as the lead underwriter for 4 tranches of various low-carbon transformation and green bonds with an underwritten amount of RMB1.088 billion. In respect of Chinese offshore bond business, 33 bonds were issued with an underwritten amount of US$5.617 billion.
In respect of financial advisory business, centered around the guidance of national industrial policies, financial policies and regional development policies, the Company practiced the business model of “One Guangfa” by holding a forum on merger and acquisition of new productive forces and building a merger and acquisition business ecosystem to provide customers with multi-level and all-round comprehensive services, promoting the orderly circulation of assets and capital. During the Reporting Period, the Company completed two projects in major asset restructuring and financial advisory business that had industry and regional influence, involving a total transaction amount of approximately RMB12.851 billion; and completed one overseas equity transaction, involving a transaction amount of approximately HK$1.098 billion. Two transactions in which the Company acted as buyer’s financial advisor were awarded the 2023-2024 Top Ten Domestic M&A Golden Whistle Award.
In the future, GF Securities will continuously commit to its corporate values of “inquisitiveness and integrity” and carry forward its excellent cultural genes of an “army of doctors”, with knowledge as the guarantee and professionalism as the cornerstone, continue to deepen and consolidate the Company ‘s outstanding location advantage in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and other places, deploy long-term strategies to well develop business with higher standard, accelerate high-quality development and contribute to serving the real economy.