Reporter: Tan Chudan, Liu Yiwen, Sun Xiangfeng, Hu Feijun, Xu Ying, Wang Rui.
Standing at the end of the year and looking back on the whole year, China's first-class industry in 2023 can really be described as a stormy road, but in the bumps on the road of high-quality development, there are wind, rain and sunshine.
"Investor-centric" is undoubtedly the biggest theme of the industry in 2023, and its specific performance includes: reducing fees and profits to enhance investors' sense of gain, providing long-term companionship and waiting to cross the market cycle, and sponsoring companies to focus on the ......transformation from "approvability" to "investability".Only by deeply grasping the people's nature of financial work and not forgetting the original intention of benefiting the people can the company achieve steady and far-reaching results.
This also forces the industry to return to its origins, re-examine the operation and management and service methods of institutions, abandon negative behaviors such as blind pursuit of economic interests, excessive marketing, and killing chickens and eggs in the past, explore new paths for business model transformation, serve the national strategy, and achieve high-quality development. This article of Brokerage China wants to use ten major events to outline the portrait of China's leading industry throughout the year.
The reform of public offering rates has hit the industry.
In 2023, the public offering** rate reform has attracted much attention. The regulator's two rounds of reform measures directly hit the pain points and difficulties of the first industry, on the one hand, to practice "finance for the people", and on the other hand, to promote the return of the first industry to its origins.
In July this year, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced the "Work Plan for the Reform of the Public Offering Industry Rate", in which the management fee and custody fee rates of active ** and partial stock hybrid ** products were uniformly reduced to2%。At present, the first phase of fee reduction has been basically completed. In December, the China Securities Regulatory Commission launched the second phase of rate reform, and solicited public opinions on the "Provisions on Strengthening the Management of Public Offering Investment", and the main measures include reducing the transaction commission rate of public offering and improving the transaction commission distribution system.
Transaction commission is the only pool of funds for the company to replace various resources of brokers, and the above reforms may profoundly affect the company's "brokerage cooperative sales model" and "sell-side research sales model".
In the short term, the income of the brokerage may be affected by the "three consecutive impacts": first, the income of the first subsidiary has declined, and the net profit of the shareholders of the brokerage has decreased;Second, the management fee rate of equity products has been reduced, and the management fee of the largest scale of ownership charged by brokerages has shrunkThird, the transaction commission rate will be reduced, the proportion of single contribution will be reduced, and the scale of the sub-position commission will be reduced by one-third.
In the long run, the high-quality development of the industry has taken a solid step. The company's business model of "sales for transaction commissions" for many years may be subverted, wealth management will truly return to the origin of customer-centricity, and the buy-side investment advisory model is expected to thrive.
At the same time, the business pattern of sell-side research will also undergo far-reaching changes, and the industry reshuffle will intensify in the short term, and the living space of small and medium-sized sellers will be squeezedIn the long run, the institute will pay more attention to research capabilities, reduce costs and increase efficiency, strengthen internal services, and explore more ways to cash in research services.
In the era of the comprehensive registration system, "investability" is emphasized
In February 2023, the comprehensive registration-based reform was officially implemented, marking a new stage in A-share issuance, and its inclusive system design provides more business opportunities for investment banks.
However, the comprehensive registration system "does not mean that whoever wants to send it will send it, and send as much as it wants", nor does it mean that the quality requirements are relaxed. This requires securities firms and investment banks to deeply understand the connotation of the registration system "with information disclosure as the core", and follow the industry logic to "select projects from the perspective of investment".
In July this year, the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges issued the "Implementation Measures for the Evaluation of the Practice Quality of Sponsor Institutions Guided by the Quality of Listed Companies (Trial)", which is a milestone, and the era of "only guaranteeing but not recommending" has become a thing of the past. The document aims to accelerate the transformation of sponsors from the concept of "approvability" to "investability". For example, the exchange will examine the fundamental changes and market performance of enterprises in the five years after listing, and the "post-listing performance change" will be included in the assessment of investment banks. This forces brokerages to judge the value of enterprises from the perspective of investors on the one hand, and on the other hand, the business development idea of "rushing to scale" must be adjusted.
In addition to the concept change, investment banks should comprehensively improve their practice capabilities, grasp the strategic opportunity of the comprehensive registration system, improve their core competitiveness such as industry research, value discovery, quality control, customer service, and direct investment, and promote the channel business to transform into a comprehensive service for the whole life cycle.
Reduce costs and increase efficiency.
With the changes in the market environment and regulatory environment, "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" has become the "main theme" of the first industry this year.
Downshifting business trip standards and customer entertainment expense standards is nothing ...... newA brokerage research institute was also revealed to have reversed the three-year taxi fare, mainly because some employees had private taxi fares, and the company had not strictly inspected the reimbursement reasons before. In addition, if there is a brokerage firm that reduces the number of financial data service provider accounts internally, or chooses a lower data service provider account.
At the same time, the company's different business lines strengthened performance appraisal, strictly checked attendance, and opened the elimination of the last position. Some research institutes require each team to set positions according to the level of the proportion of dispatch points, and if the proportion level of the number of people is still higher than the proportion level of the dispatch point after one year, the personnel will be eliminated until the proportion of the dispatch point is level.
In the context of "performance rises, salary rises, performance falls, salaries fall", the "securities industry salary reduction tide" that has attracted much market attention has appeared. According to the previous statistics of listed securities companies in 2022 by brokerage China reporters, it was found that "ultra-high salary" executives have become a thing of the past, and "annual salary of 10 million" has disappeared;At the same time, the average salary per employee is 48300,000 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of nearly 20%. There are 6 brokerage companies whose average salary per employee has fallen by more than 30%. This year, the Chinese reporter of the brokerage learned that the monthly fixed salary of the employees of some large brokerages is facing a general reduction.
827 New Deal "Equity Financing Variations."
The "turn" of the equity financing market in the middle of this year will undoubtedly have an "impact" on the income of brokerages.
On August 27, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced that it would tighten the pace of IPOs in stages according to market conditions, promote the dynamic balance of investment and financing, and also impose some restrictions on the refinancing behavior of listed companies, which was called the "827 New Deal" by market participants.
Since the regulator proposed the counter-cyclical adjustment of the primary and secondary markets, the pace of A-share equity financing has slowed down significantly. Wind data shows that from September to November this year, the scale of A-share equity financing was 55.1 billion yuan, 40.4 billion yuan, and 48.3 billion yuan respectively, equivalent to only one-third of the 154.5 billion yuan in AugustThe number of financing companies has halved.
In the short term, the income of brokerages has been greatly affected. The performance of 43 listed securities companies in the third quarter has shown "clues". Flush iFind shows that more than seventy percent of brokerages have seen a decline in net income from investment banking fees in the first three quarters, and some large brokerages have fallen by more than 30%.The impact of small and medium-sized brokerages was even greater, with some of them decreasing by more than 70%.
However, in the medium and long term, China's equity financing market still has a high growth space, and the rate of first-class financing in line with the national strategic field is expected to increase significantly in the next five years. The brokerages still emphasize that it is necessary to further strengthen internal investment and research collaboration and human resource advantages, stretch the industrial service chain, and fully tap potential customers in various segments of key industries and in different life cycles.
*Regularization of investment advisory pilot exploration.
How to truly stand in the customer's position to help investors personalize asset allocation has become a topic for all parties to explore. The construction of the "buy-side investment advisory model" is of great significance to the transformation of brokerage wealth management.
The industry's exploration of this model started with "investment advisory", and since the pilot project for more than three years, the investment advisory business has grown rapidly. As of the end of March 2023, a total of 60 institutions have been included in the pilot, serving a total of 5.24 million customers and assets of 146.4 billion yuan.
On June 9, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued the "Regulations on the Administration of Public Offering of **Investment** Investment Advisory Business (Draft for Comments)", which plans to promote the pilot transformation of ** investment advisory business into a regular one, which will undoubtedly provide a business grasp and mature business model for more institutions committed to the transformation of buy-side investment advisors.
At present, the domestic buyer's investment consulting business is still a young man who has not been born for a long time, although the future is bright, but it is inevitable that there will be ups and downs. In the process of business development, the buyer's investment advisor encountered challenges such as sluggish performance, low market recognition, and insufficient internal resources. In this process, various business development institutions have risen to the challenge, actively carried out business innovation, promoted the development of the industry, carried out cross-border cooperation, expanded institutional customers such as trusts, increased the depth of daily customer services, and provided more strategic options.
If the direction is correct, there will be no worries about the road, and I hope that the buyer's investment advisor can keep the original intention of making money for customers in the future and add a force to inclusive finance.
Take the capital-saving road.
Under the regulatory model with net capital as the core, the company has continued to "replenish blood" to enhance its capital strength in recent years. However, the trend of "blood replenishment" has changed significantly this year: the listing financing road has stagnated, and the refinancing plan has continued to adjust ......
In January this year, the China Securities Regulatory Commission advocated that the company focus on its main responsibilities and main businesses, and take a new path of capital-saving and high-quality development. In response to the call of supervision, two leading brokerages have taken the initiative to terminate the 10 billion allotment plan, and many brokerages have revised the fixed increase plan, or reduced the financing scale, or adjusted the investment direction of funds. In terms of IPOs, except for the successful listing of Cinda ** at the beginning of this year, the review of 6 securities companies to be listed has been slow.
Due to the difficulty in promoting equity financing, this year, the company mainly financed through bond issuance. 2023 will be a big year for securities companies to issue bonds, and the scale of bond issuance will hit a new high, exceeding one trillion yuan.
In addition to restricting large-scale refinancing, improving the efficiency of the use of existing funds is also the direction of regulatory encouragement. In November 2023, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) solicited public comments on the revision of the Provisions on the Calculation Standards for Risk Control Indicators of ** Companies. The draft supports compliance and stable high-quality ** companies to appropriately expand capital space, improve the efficiency of capital use, and become better and stronger.
For brokers, on the one hand, they need to be cautious in their business development, and on the other hand, they will fully improve the utilization efficiency of the stock capital, and the pace of taking the road of capital conservation will be more firm.
Stamp duty and transaction handling fees will be reduced.
A-shares performed poorly during the year due to factors such as the internal and external macro environment, and the regulator issued a package of policies in August to ease market pressure, which attracted much attention from the market, both on the stock price performance of the brokerage sector and on the brokerage industry.
It is reported that under the guidance of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Shanghai and Shenzhen North Stock Exchange further reduced the transaction handling fee in August, of which the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange transaction handling fee was reduced by 30%, and the Beijing Stock Exchange transaction handling fee was reduced by 50%. * The company has responded and effectively transmitted the policy effect of the reduction of the transaction handling fee to the majority of investors.
In the same month, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation announced that the stamp duty on ** transactions would be halved. The adjustment** of stamp duty on transactions reflects the country's determination to boost the capital market. The above policies will help attract more investors to participate in ** trading and enhance the vitality of the market. A number of brokerage analysts believe that it will help boost the market performance of brokerage stocks.
Obviously, activating the capital market is not an expedient measure, but a key step in economic construction, the role of the capital market in promoting economic growth and residents' wealth creation has been further explored and recognized, and investors can have more patience and expectations for the construction of an active capital market. The road is long, the road is coming, the positive factors are already accumulating, and a brighter turn may not be far away.
The anti-corruption efforts of the securities industry are unprecedented.
Since the beginning of this year, the anti-corruption of the first industry has struck hard, and a number of cadres of the securities regulatory system or senior executives of the first company have been taken away for investigation one after another, shocking the market. **The Financial Work Conference pointed out that financial chaos and corruption have persisted.
According to the Chinese reporter of the brokerage, some of the relevant anti-corruption targets have many years of regulatory work experience, and they will be investigated after serving in the ** and management units for many yearsSome have worked in ** companies for a long time and are eventually involved in corruption cases.
In January this year, Feng Henian, the former chairman of Minsheng**, was expelled from the party, and he had worked in the China Securities Regulatory Commission for 18 yearsThe follow-up includes Li Geping, former general manager of China Securities Construction Investment, Zhu Congjiu, vice chairman of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, An Qingsong, president of the China ** Industry Association, and Liu Wei, former deputy general manager of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. In terms of enterprises, for example, Chen Gongyan, the former chairman of Yinhe**, was investigated after retirement, which also shocked the industry.
It can be seen from the repeated reports of the ** Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission that some of the above-mentioned people "rely on the issuance of examination to eat the issuance of examination" and "rely on finance to eat finance", lose their ideals and beliefs, and deviate from their original mission.
Industry insiders believe that on the long road of financial anti-corruption, the first industry has shown firm determination and continuous efforts. A series of key figures have been investigated to demonstrate the regulator's zero-tolerance stance towards power rent-seeking and financial corruption, and these anti-corruption initiatives have sought to maintain fairness and fairness in financial markets and strengthen the integrity of the country's financial system.
The process of mergers and acquisitions in the securities industry has accelerated.
In recent years, the Matthew effect of the industry has been highlighted, the concentration of the industry has been further improved, the profitability of the head brokerage and the small and medium-sized brokerage has been greatly different, and the industry reshuffle has opened again. In the context of industry profit differentiation, with the release of positive statements by regulatory policies again this year, the process of mergers and acquisitions in the securities industry is expected to accelerate.
In October this year, the first financial work conference mentioned "cultivating first-class investment banks and investment institutions";Subsequently, the China Securities Regulatory Commission expressed its support for leading securities firms to become better and stronger through business innovation, mergers and acquisitions, and other means, and guided small and medium-sized institutions to combine resource endowments and professional capabilities such as shareholder backgrounds and regional advantages to do fine.
It is reported that in March this year, after three hours of fierce games with Zhejiang businessmen and Soochow, Wuxi Guolian Group bid for Oceanwide Holdings' holdings of Minsheng **30 through judicial auction3% equity. In December, the China Securities Regulatory Commission approved the change of major shareholders of Minsheng**, which lasted only 8 months from the submission of application materials to the approval of approval.
Huachuang**'s acquisition of the equity of Pacific ** also ushered in the latest review progress in December this year, and received feedback from the China Securities Regulatory Commission. In the same month, Zhejiang businessmen announced that they would select the national capital as the next merger and acquisition target, believing that the two sides would better connect the resources of the Yangtze River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region by giving full play to their respective advantages.
In the context of accelerating the construction of a financial power, the wave of regulatory-supported mergers and acquisitions of securities companies is expected to rise again. Affected by the concept of mergers and acquisitions in the securities industry, brokerage stocks were favored by investors at the end of this year. Sell-side analysts believe that the logic of mergers and acquisitions will continue to be deduced, and they can pay attention to M&A theme investment opportunities.
Seize the new opportunities of the reform of the Beijing Stock Exchange.
On September 1, 2023, the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued the "Opinions on the High-quality Construction of the Beijing ** Exchange", which plans to significantly improve the market size, efficiency, quality, function, activity, and stability of the Beijing Stock Exchange in the future.
This reform not only opens up more space for the high-quality development of the Beijing Stock Exchange, but also opens up a new battlefield and provides new development momentum for the company's business. Since September this year, a number of first-class companies have stepped up the formulation of internal work plans, accelerated preparations, increased publicity and promotion, and conveyed the latest system, investment opportunities and investment logic of the Beijing Stock Exchange market to the market.
At the investment banking level, brokerages are actively stockpiling listing projects on the Beijing Stock Exchange, and some leading brokerages are competing for business. In terms of account opening, with the adjustment of investor suitability conditions and the emergence of the money-making effect of the secondary market of the Beijing Stock Exchange, the company has vigorously promoted account opening by adjusting the assessment mechanism, salary incentives, internal branch rankings, financial technology and other measures.
In terms of market making, many brokerages have applied for the market-making qualification of the Beijing Stock Exchange, and the market makers of the Beijing Stock Exchange are expected to further expand. In addition, there are also securities companies from the investment side, the establishment of the Beijing Stock Exchange equity investment**, etc.
Based on the new stage and new starting point, the company has a great future to participate in the high-quality construction of the Beijing Stock Exchange. On the one hand, the brokerage company works hard to seize the opportunity;On the other hand, it better serves the real economy and national strategy.
Editor-in-charge: Gui Yanmin.
Proofreading: Wang Wei.