Guotai Haitong Reports H1 Net Profit of 20.26 Billion Yuan, Institutional and Trading Business Contributes Nearly Half of Revenue
Nashnova编辑部
Guotai Haitong Securities (国泰海通) posted a record first-half net profit of RMB 20.26 billion, up 28.7% year-on-year; its institutional and trading business alone contributed 47% of total revenue, signaling that merger synergies are starting to show.
How much did it earn — and how should we read the growth rate?
Revenue hit RMB 47.16 billion, up 97.6% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 20.26 billion, up 28.7%.
Revenue nearly doubled yet profit rose only about a third. This means → last year's base was inflated by a large one-off gain booked when Guotai absorbed Haitong Securities.
In plain terms = strip out that one-time item and underlying profit growth is actually faster; this year's numbers better reflect normal operations.
Why did the institutional and trading arm deliver nearly half of revenue?
The segment generated RMB 22.18 billion in revenue, up 223% year-on-year — a single business line accounting for 47% of the firm's total.
The driver: fair-value gains on trading assets — financial instruments held for active trading — surged to RMB 26.98 billion, roughly RMB 30 billion more than a year ago.
Yet investment income swung to negative RMB 1.14 billion, down RMB 13.8 billion, mainly because derivatives — contracts used for hedging or directional bets — lost money. This reflects a clear trade-off: the trading book profited handsomely, but hedging costs on the derivatives side were significant.
How are wealth management and investment banking performing?
Wealth management revenue reached RMB 14.66 billion, up 50%, still the second-largest segment at 31% of total revenue. Brokerage commission income alone was RMB 9.94 billion, up 73%, driven by higher equity and fund trading volumes.
Margin-finance balances stood at RMB 296.1 billion, up 20.3% from year-end, with a 9.80% market share. This means → clients are more willing to lever up, and the firm holds close to a tenth of the margin-lending market.
Investment banking revenue was RMB 2.27 billion, up 61%. The firm led 14 IPOs in the period with 57 more in the pipeline — both ranked first in the industry. Since the STAR Market launched, it has underwritten 110 STAR IPOs totaling RMB 220.1 billion, also the industry's top spot.
What direction are asset management and leasing heading?
Asset management revenue was RMB 4.90 billion, up 59%. Subsidiary Fullgoal Fund's AUM topped RMB 2.2 trillion for the first time; HuaAn Fund's AUM reached RMB 915.7 billion; HFT Fund's bond-ETF AUM hit RMB 171.8 billion, ranking first for five consecutive years.
In plain terms = three fund subsidiaries each have a distinct edge, and together they powered the segment's nearly 60% revenue growth.
Financial leasing revenue was RMB 2.10 billion, down a marginal 0.37% — the only business line in negative territory. Subsidiary Haitong UniTrust posted a period profit of RMB 595 million; scale is stable, but growth momentum is weak.
How much is the dividend — and what should we watch next?
The firm plans to pay RMB 0.30 per share (pre-tax), based on 17.51 billion shares, for a total cash payout of RMB 5.25 billion — 25.93% of first-half net profit.
This means → a payout ratio just under a quarter, middle-of-the-road for a large broker — the signal is "preserve capital first, reward shareholders second."
The market's next key checkpoint: whether the scale synergies from the Guotai–Haitong merger can keep translating into profit growth in the second half — that will directly shape the firm's valuation narrative.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.