With the release of the semi-annual report by its parent company Guosheng Financial Holding Inc., Guosheng Securities' performance has also been disclosed.

During the reporting period, the company achieved total operating revenue of 86 billion yuan, a 4.24% decrease compared to the same period of the previous year; and a net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company of 4.5 billion yuan, a 55.04% decrease compared to the same period of the previous year.

Among them, the brokerage business and sell-side research business of this brokerage firm have shown significant year-on-year decline in revenue.

Fortunately, Guosheng Securities focused on proprietary trading in the first half of the year, and used a multi-asset, multi-strategy approach to control risks and increase profits, which has become the company's profit-making core.

Proprietary trading can really be profitable.

There is an important paragraph in Guosheng Securities' semi-annual report.

"As the proportion of other income declines, securities proprietary trading has become an increasingly important source of profit for securities companies, and high-quality asset management business will also become an important source of income for securities companies."

In other words, guosheng financial holding inc. has increased the importance of proprietary investment.

The so-called proprietary business refers to the behavior of securities companies using their own funds to engage in securities trading in the primary and secondary markets for the purpose of profitability and taking corresponding risks.

Semi-annual report disclosure: guosheng financial holding inc.'s cumulative total income from proprietary business in the first half of the year (including investment income and fair value changes in profit and loss) increased by 15.42% year-on-year.

Investment banking and sales business are in an adjustment period.

At the same time, many of guosheng financial holding inc.'s businesses are more challenging than before.

In the context of the slowdown in IPO new share issuance and refinancing, investment banking business is obviously more difficult to do;

Against the backdrop of commission fee reductions, the sales research business is also relatively tight. In the first half of 2024, guosheng financial holding inc.'s research institute achieved a cumulative seat commission income of 0.18 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 15.09%; achieved research consulting services of 0.009 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 52.78%.

Proprietary business "breakthrough"

As of the end of June 2024, the total assets of Guosheng Securities amounted to 37.308 billion yuan, an increase of 14.78% compared to the beginning of the period, mainly due to the increase in the scale of self-operated business in this period.

The expansion of self-operated business is reflected multiple times in this financial statement.

First, the proportion of money market funds to the total assets of the company decreased from 30.22% at the end of last year to the latest 24.77%. Guosheng explained that this was due to the increase in capital investment in self-operated business and a decrease in customer funds.

Second, the proportion of trading financial assets to the total assets of the company increased to 29.87%, mainly due to the increase in the scale of self-operated business in this period.

Third, the net cash flow from operating activities decreased by 261% year-on-year, mainly due to the increase in capital investment in self-operated business in this period.

Asset management business has the fastest growth rate.

In Guosheng's semi-annual report, the income of the asset management business had the highest year-on-year growth rate, reaching 184.22%.

It is reported that the asset management business of the brokerage is developed according to customer demand to create corresponding products and earn management fees, performance-based fees, and related income. Guosheng Securities mainly involves collective asset management business and targeted asset management business.

At the end of the first half of this year, the number of clients was 638, and the entrusted asset scale was 2.142 billion yuan. Among them, there were 603 individual clients, and the strength of each individual client should not be underestimated.