By Engen Tham and Selena Li
SHANGHAI/HONGKONG (Reuters) -China’s CITIC Securities Co, the country’s biggest brokerage, reported a 32% rise in net profit in the first quarter this year, on strong investment returns and higher brokerage fee income.
Its quarterly profit was 6.545 billion yuan ($900.50 million), up from 4.959 billion yuan in the same period last year, according to a filing on Tuesday.
Investment income hit 14.5 billion yuan, an increase of over 500%, while net fee and commission income hit 7.3 billion yuan in the first quarter, an increase of around 24%.
In the first quarter, investors rushed into AI H-shares spurred by DeepSeek’s breakthroughs and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with industry leaders.
Total equity issuance from Chinese firms in the first quarter also doubled versus a year earlier, as the Chinese government stepped up support to technology majors to help drive renewed activity in the market.
($1 = 7.2682 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Engen Tham, Selena Li and Ziyi Tang, Editing by Louise Heavens)
