CICC has significantly raised salaries, with an average of nearly 800,000 yuan per person. After holding out for four years, investment banking elites have finally welcomed a wave of salary increases!
In 2025, China's highest-earning young professionals finally received a salary bump
Over the past four years, analysts entering CICC with degrees from top-tier universities like Peking University and Tsinghua have quietly endured consecutive declines in compensation
Average pay fell from 1.2398 million yuan per person in 2020 to 642,600 yuan in 2024, nearly halving
Their 'leaders' fared even worse
According to 'Cai Zhong She', the average compensation for CICC's management receiving salaries dropped from RMB 6.73 million in 2020 to RMB 1.11 million, marking a decline of over 80%.
In 2025, with the recovery of the capital market, this curve finally changed direction.
According to CICC's annual report, its average employee compensation rebounded to RMB 799,300, representing a significant increase of 24.39% compared to RMB 642,600 in 2024. This figure ranks second only to CITIC Securities' RMB 812,800 among listed brokerages.
But questions arise: is the money really more, or is it due to a reduction in staff? Who truly benefited from this round of rebound—senior executives or regular employees? What impact will the increasingly tightened compensation policies of state-owned financial institutions bring?
HKEX IPOs rebound, and CICC's performance surges
To understand CICC’s payroll in 2025, one must first look at a performance report.
In 2025, China's A-share market experienced what institutional investors widely referred to as an 'asset revaluation' rally.
The SSE Index hit a ten-year high, rising 18.4% for the year, while the trend of household deposits shifting into investments was particularly active. The Hong Kong stock market also recovered in tandem, with the IPO market significantly warming up.
These factors combined almost directly boosted the revenue of leading brokerages.
Financial reports show that CICC achieved full-year operating revenue of RMB 28.481 billion in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 33.50%. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company reached RMB 9.791 billion, a substantial year-on-year increase of 71.93%.
Source: Company Annual Report
In terms of industry comparison, according to data from the Securities Association of China, in 2025, the entire industry’s 150 brokerages achieved revenue of 541.171 billion yuan and net profit of 219.439 billion yuan, increasing by 20% and 31% respectively compared to the previous year.
This means that CICC's net profit growth rate is more than twice the industry average.
Specifically, in terms of business segments, what is the engine driving CICC's performance?
The data shows that investment banking is the fastest-growing division across the company, generating revenue of 4.597 billion yuan in 2025, a significant increase of 77.96% year-on-year, with an operating profit margin reaching 42.63%, up 26.26 percentage points year-on-year.
This is directly related to the recovery of Hong Kong's IPO market, where CICC has long been one of the major underwriters. In 2025, the company facilitated global IPO financing worth 26.783 billion US dollars for Chinese enterprises, ranking first in the market.
Overseas operations were also strong, with annual overseas revenue increasing by 58% year-on-year, accounting for nearly 30% of total revenue.
This is the key differentiator for CICC compared to most domestic brokerages. When domestic operations face widespread pressure, its overseas presence acts as a 'cushion'; when overseas markets recover, it becomes an accelerator for outpacing peers.
Notably, in 2025, CICC’s total assets reached 782.826 billion yuan, increasing by 16.02% year-on-year, while net assets reached 122.058 billion yuan, growing by 5.82% year-on-year.
The growth rate of net assets was significantly lower than that of total assets.
This means that CICC has proactively added leverage, using more borrowed money to expand its assets.
This is a common move for leading brokerages when market conditions improve, but leverage is a double-edged sword: it amplifies returns when the market is favorable and similarly magnifies losses when the market reverses.
Employee compensation at the company rose for the first time in four years.
With the company's performance improving, employees' treatment naturally also increased.
In fact, this 'pay raise' might have been long awaited by CICC employees.
Data shows that in 2020, the average compensation per employee at CICC was 1.2398 million yuan, ranking first in the industry. Since then, the average compensation per employee at CICC has shown a declining trend.
From 2021 to 2024, the average compensation per employee at the company was 1.1643 million yuan, 819,600 yuan, 700,400 yuan, and 642,600 yuan, respectively.
Looking at the entire industry, the situation is basically the same.
The data shows that in 2021, with an average compensation of 1.1643 million yuan per employee, CICC still ranked first in the securities industry, with CITIC Securities following closely at 947,000 yuan. According to a report by the 21st Century Business Herald, as of the disclosed 2023 annual reports, the average compensation of employees at 12 leading brokerages had shrunk to 580,900 yuan, leaving only CITIC Securities and CICC above 700,000 yuan.
In other words, in this industry-wide pay cut, CICC fell the hardest and deepest.
Source: Company Annual Report
According to employee data, as of the end of 2025, CICC had a total of 14,218 employees, with 13,156 located in mainland China and 1,062 in Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany, accounting for 93% and 7% of the group's total workforce respectively.
The number of employees decreased from 14,650 at the end of 2024 to 14,218 at the end of 2025, a reduction of 432 people.
With total compensation rising and headcount declining, the combination has led to an increase in per capita figures partly due to 'structural optimization'—cutting relatively lower-paid positions while retaining higher-value talent.
This is a common compensation management practice for investment banks during periods of business contraction and does not benefit everyone.
However, the situation regarding executive pay is quite different.
According to the 2025 annual report, CICC's Chief Compliance Officer, Zhou Jiaxing, received the highest pre-tax compensation totaling 2.363 million yuan, down 8,000 yuan from 2.371 million yuan in 2024; aside from Zhou Jiaxing, the compensation for the remaining directors, supervisors, and senior management is now below 1.5 million yuan.
Source: Company Annual Report
Compared to four years ago, the disparity is extremely dramatic.
In 2020, the combined compensation for CICC’s management totaled 168 million yuan, with seven individuals earning more than 10 million yuan each, including Huang Haizhou, a member of the Management Committee, who earned a pre-tax compensation of 19.307 million yuan that year.
Among the executives who have remained in their roles, Hu Changsheng, a member of the Management Committee, saw his compensation drop from 5.455 million yuan in 2020 to 1.472 million yuan in 2025, a 73% decrease; Chief Risk Officer Zhang Fengwei’s compensation fell from 5.217 million yuan to 1.473 million yuan, a 72% decline.
The simultaneous occurrence of employee raises and executive pay cuts is no coincidence.
In fact, under intense policy pressure, senior management has taken the lead in accepting salary cuts to secure relatively relaxed compensation space for the business level.
In other words, restraint on executive compensation is a kind of 'cost' for the continuation of a market-oriented pay system at the grassroots level.
Behind the 800,000 yuan annual salary
Investment banks have always been considered typical representatives of high-paying industries, often referred to as the 'elite.'
Taking an 800,000 yuan annual salary as a benchmark, we can reassess whether the compensation in this industry is reasonable.
First, the most direct reference for determining whether compensation is reasonable is how much money the individual has helped the company earn.
Dividing CICC’s 2025 revenue by the total number of employees, the per capita revenue is approximately 2 million yuan, and the 800,000 yuan average compensation roughly equals 40% of per capita revenue, which aligns with the general compensation-to-revenue ratio of international investment banks.
Public data shows that top Wall Street investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley historically maintain a compensation-to-revenue ratio typically between 40% and 50%. From this perspective, CICC’s compensation levels do not seem excessive.
While it may be reasonable, challenges still exist.
Since 2022, the Ministry of Finance, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), and the Financial Supervisory Authority have successively issued documents imposing clear requirements on the compensation management of state-owned financial institutions. The core logic is to restrict excessively high salaries and promote deferred payment and performance clawback mechanisms. In simple terms, bonuses are not fully paid out immediately; if problems with operations are later discovered, already disbursed payments will need to be reclaimed.
CICC's largest shareholder is Central Huijin, holding 40.11% of the shares, which theoretically places it fully within the scope of this policy framework. Currently, executive compensation has been significantly reduced, but the boundaries for employee-level rules remain unclear, with significant ambiguity still present in the policy.
If regulatory tightening extends to the employee level in the future, the average compensation of 799,300 yuan may also face direct pressure.
Additionally, CICC faces some new challenges.
At present, CICC is actively promoting the absorption and merger of Dongxing Securities and Cinda Securities, aiming to achieve a '1+2>3' synergistic effect through complementary strengths. Upon completion of this acquisition, the total number of CICC employees will expand significantly, and its asset scale is expected to reach one trillion yuan.
Source: Annual Report of the Company
However, after the merger of the three institutions, how will the significant differences in compensation systems be addressed?
According to publicly available data estimates, the average compensation at Dongxing Securities and Cinda Securities is approximately between 350,000 and 500,000 yuan, far lower than that of CICC.
If a unified compensation standard is implemented after the merger, CICC employees’ compensation may be diluted due to the increase in personnel base; if differentiated compensation is maintained, a de facto 'dual-track system' under the same roof would emerge, making management extremely challenging and significantly increasing the risk of losing key personnel.
Such integration issues have precedents in the history of domestic and international financial institution mergers and acquisitions, often resulting in either compensation alignment towards lower levels or the departure of top talent.
Summary
Through CICC’s annual report, the era of widespread multi-million-yuan annual salaries for the 'investment banking aristocracy' has indeed ended, but it remains one of the highest-paying companies in the securities industry in terms of per capita compensation.
However, for CICC, on one side there is the ceiling of persistently tightening policies, and on the other side, there is the market-driven incentive needed for its internationalization strategy. Caught between these two forces, finding the balance between policy compliance and market competitiveness is a question without a standard answer that CICC faces.
And the answer to this question may not just be answered by CICC itself, but rather by the entire state-owned financial institution sector.
Risk Disclaimer: The above content only represents the author's view. It does not represent any position or investment advice of Futu. Futu makes no representation or warranty.Read more
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