The mid-year performance reports for this year have come to an end, and the semi-annual reports for 2024 of listed securities firms have been successively disclosed.

Overall, the entire securities industry is facing significant challenges due to the influence of the general environment, and both total revenue and net profit have been impacted to some extent.

As one of the established securities firms, Everbright Securities (601788.SH) recently released its semi-annual performance report for 2024.

In the first half of 2024, the company achieved a total operating income of 4.184 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 32.29%, and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 1.391 billion yuan, a significant decline of 41.87% year-on-year.

It can be seen that both the performance of revenue and the net profit attributable to the parent company have declined significantly, and compared with the entire listed securities firms, the decline is in the middle and upper range.

At the same time, this report also shows the specific changes in Everbright Securities' core businesses such as wealth management, corporate financing, and institutional customer services.

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Wealth management business accounts for half of the empire.

In the first half of this year, the largest revenue of Everbright Securities came from the wealth management business, which mainly includes retail business, financing and securities lending business, stock pledge business, futures brokerage business, and overseas wealth management and brokerage business.

During the reporting period, the business revenue accounted for 48%, achieving a revenue of 2 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of about 23.07%.

Next is the institutional customer business, including institutional trading business, prime broker business, asset custody and outsourcing business, investment research business, financial innovation business, and overseas institutional trading business.

The business revenue accounted for 13%, achieving a revenue of 540 million yuan, a year-on-year decline of 32.5%.

Among them, the most serious decline in the institutional customer business is the corporate financing business, including equity financing business, debt financing business, overseas investment banking business, and financing lease business, achieving a revenue of 460 million yuan, a significant year-on-year decline of about 34.29%.

In addition, the contribution of equity investment business is negative, compared with the positive income of the same period last year.

It should be pointed out that last year, Everbright Securities' wholly-owned subsidiary Everbright Capital MPS case reached a settlement with China Merchants Bank and Hua Rui Bank, resulting in an increase in non-recurring gains and losses, coupled with the poor performance, which further cast a shadow on the performance of this established securities firm.

While the performance has declined significantly, Everbright Securities has also carried out cost control and efficiency improvement, and optimized business outlets.

Since the beginning of the year, Everbright Securities has successively revoked a total of 10 business departments in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Taicang, Jinan and other places, compared with the 4 business departments that were cancelled in 2023, the adjustment this year has significantly increased.

For this series of operations, the company stated externally, "It is to reduce the investment in low-efficiency, ineffective outlets, including financial costs and management costs.

The optimization of business outlets is an active transformation under the background of the major transformation of the wealth management business model, team construction, and customer service needs.

Precious resources will be invested in improving customer service quality, reducing fees for investors, and building a professional team to better play the functional responsibilities of financial institutions and further consolidate the company's competitiveness and brand image in the market."

"Now many offline business departments don't have a few people in a day, and almost all business can be operated on the mobile terminal," a senior securities industry person told "Investor Network", "There are also some old investors who will often come to the business department to exchange views with their peers, which may have become a habit for them."

Despite a series of adjustments, Everbright Securities' subordinate business departments have been issued a warning letter by the local securities regulatory bureau due to internal control issues.

According to incomplete statistics, there have been about 8 violations since the beginning of 2024, most of which involve business departments, such as repeated violations of business departments.

In March this year, the Ningxia Securities Regulatory Bureau reported that Everbright Securities Yinchuan Phoenix North Street Securities Business Department had provided risk assessment answers to investors, promised the income or compensation for the loss of investors' securities transactions, agreed to share investment income or bear the loss of investment with investors, entrusted others to solicit customers, and privately sold private equity fund products that the company did not sell during the securities brokerage business marketing activities.

In May this year, the Jiangsu Securities Regulatory Bureau reported that Everbright Securities Nanjing branch business department was issued a warning letter because it failed to fulfill its duties diligently, prudently, and comprehensively understand the situation of investors, and failed to effectively verify the asset certification documents and investment experience materials provided by investors when opening the rights of the National SME Share Transfer System for some customers.

In addition to the major adjustments of business departments, the personnel changes of Everbright Securities this year are also relatively frequent.

According to the announcement, in January this year, Everbright Securities company business director Liang Chunliang and supervisor Wu Chunsheng resigned.

In March, another company business director Li Bingtao resigned due to work adjustment.

In May, Everbright Securities vice president Wang Zhong resigned due to work adjustment.

In June, another vice president Fu Jianping announced his resignation due to work adjustment, and Fu Jianping was just appointed as vice president on June 30, 2023, and has been in office for less than a year.

Public information shows that Wang Zhong was appointed as vice president in March 2015 and has been in office for more than nine consecutive years.

Wang Zhong has served as the deputy general manager (in charge of work) of the fixed income headquarters of Everbright Securities, the assistant president and vice president of Everbright Financial Control Asset Management, and the legal representative of Everbright Fuzun.

Wang Zhong has rich experience in the securities industry.

Before joining Everbright Securities, he also served as a business director at Guotai Junan Securities and the head of the securities investment department of the investment management department at Haitong Securities.

Another vice president who resigned, Fu Jianping, has served in many subsidiaries of Everbright Group, including the business manager of the development research department of Everbright Bank, the senior deputy manager of the strategic management department, the director of the equity management department of Everbright Group, and the executive vice president of Everbright Yunfu Internet.

According to industry insiders, the continuous loss of senior personnel this year may be due to factors such as poor company performance in recent years and a significant reduction in compensation.

In fact, the loss of personnel in Everbright Securities can be seen from the performance reports in recent years.

As of the end of June 2024, Everbright Securities had a total of 7860 employees, compared with 8280 employees in the same period last year, a decrease of 420 people.

The 2023 annual report shows that Everbright Securities had a total of 8064 employees.

Among the main business positions, the brokerage business reduced by 361 people, the investment bank reduced by 42 people, other businesses reduced by 40 people, and researchers reduced by 29 people.

How to reverse the decline in revenue is the problem that the company needs to solve urgently.

In this regard, Everbright Securities stated that the company will increase investment and support for wealth management business in the future, promote development through reform, focus on the transformation of work in three aspects: employee transformation, tool transformation, and outlet transformation, and strive to create a more intelligent and convenient service environment.