Over the past year, Zhao Ling, the Chairman of Everbright Securities, has rarely appeared at public events.

He has become more low-profile, focusing intently on the internal development of Everbright Securities.

In 2022, Zhao Ling became the "fire-fighting captain," parachuting into Everbright Securities as Chairman to deal with the aftermath of risk events and executive turbulence.

In recent years, neither the scale nor the profitability of Everbright Securities has been particularly impressive.

However, according to the company's 2025 performance forecast, Zhao Ling's efforts have finally yielded results.

He has successfully steered Everbright Securities past two major milestones.

Firstly, Everbright Securities has finally crossed the 300 billion yuan threshold.

From 2022 to 2024, Everbright Securities' total assets were 258.4 billion yuan, 259.6 billion yuan, and 293.0 billion yuan, respectively. By the end of 2025, its total assets had increased to 318.179 billion yuan.

Secondly, Everbright Securities has finally returned to a state of simultaneous growth in both revenue and net profit.

From 2022 to 2024, the company's revenue growth rates were -35.48%, -6.94%, and -4.32%, respectively, while its net profit attributable to shareholders grew by -8.47%, 33.93%, and -28.39%, respectively.

Notably, revenue had contracted for three consecutive years.

In 2025, Zhao Ling reversed this trend.

Data shows that in 2025, Everbright Securities achieved operating revenue of 10.863 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.18%, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of 3.729 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.92%, marking double-digit growth in both revenue and profit.

Despite the performance growth, Everbright Securities still faces several unresolved challenges.

One is the need to increase its net capital.

At the end of the third quarter of 2025, the net capital of Everbright Securities' parent company was 41.76 billion yuan, a decrease of 3.812 billion yuan from the end of the previous year.

Net capital represents a brokerage's "real available capital" for risk absorption and is a core indicator for measuring risk exposure. A decrease in net capital implies that Everbright Securities needs to strengthen its internal controls and risk management.

Another challenge is the need to boost its investment banking business.

In the first half of 2025, Everbright Securities achieved operating revenue of 5.12 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22%, with growth in revenue from wealth management, institutional clients, investment trading, and asset management businesses.

However, the core corporate finance business revenue still requires improvement. In the first half of 2025, revenue from this business was 383 million yuan, a decrease of 16% year-on-year, with a gross profit margin of 38%, down 10 percentage points from the previous year.

A third challenge is the need to reduce operating costs.

In the first half of 2025, Everbright Securities' operating expenses were 3.08 billion yuan, an increase of 19% year-on-year.

Within this, business and management expenses amounted to 2.98 billion yuan, an increase of 400 million yuan, or 15%, primarily due to changes in employee costs and electronic equipment operation fees.

Specifically, employee costs reached 2.018 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.62%.

Conversely, the number of employees at Everbright Securities is declining.

As of June 2025, Everbright Securities had 7,640 employees (including 1,081 brokers), a decrease of 84 people from 7,724 at the end of the previous year.

Calculated simply based on employee costs, the average monthly salary per employee at Everbright Securities in the first half of 2025 was approximately 44,000 yuan.

Furthermore, the directors, supervisors, and senior management of Everbright Securities also saw a reduction in their compensation.

In the first half of 2025, the total pre-tax compensation received by the directors, supervisors, and senior executives of Everbright Securities attributable to the period was 10.0767 million yuan, a decrease of 4.5301 million yuan from 14.6068 million yuan in the same period last year.