In recent years, the Sichuan state-owned assets system has been intensively promoting a series of asset swaps and specialized integrations, with a comprehensive systemic asset restructuring covering transportation infrastructure, rail transit, clean energy, and equipment manufacturing now in full swing.
Recently, the major asset restructuring plan for Xinzhu Co., Ltd. has been accepted by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and Sichuan Road & Bridge Co., Ltd. has completed the relevant voting for the acquisition of bridge component assets. The business boundaries of the two provincial-level trillion-yuan state-owned capital platforms, Shudao Investment Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shudao Group") and Sichuan Development (Holdings) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Sichuan Development"), have been further clarified.
This cross-platform asset swap involving listed companies is also a key implementation measure of the "1+8" key area reform for Sichuan's provincial state-owned enterprises. Subsequently, Sichuan's state-owned assets sector will continue to advance the latter stages of the reform, promoting the participating restructured enterprises to move from simple "physical integration" of assets towards "chemical fusion" involving business, management, and resource synergy, to fully unleash the operational efficiency of state-owned assets.
Two-Way Asset Swap
The important task of this round of Sichuan's state-owned asset restructuring is to resolve historical issues such as the dispersed layout, overlapping businesses, and internal competition within the provincial transportation assets sector. Currently, the two major state-owned capital platforms, Shudao Group and Sichuan Development, are the core levers of the reform. Promoting the asset integration of enterprises like Sichuan Road & Bridge and Xinzhu Co., Ltd. is also a further implementation of the specialized division requirement of "consolidating one type of asset under one operating entity."
At the end of 2024, the two platforms initiated a non-compensatory transfer of equity, with the controlling shareholder of Xinzhu Co., Ltd. changing from Sichuan Development to Shudao Group, officially marking the beginning of the integration.
Prior to the asset restructuring and integration, there was significant room for optimization and enhancement in business coordination and industrial synergy between the two listed companies under Shudao Group. Xinzhu Co., Ltd. was simultaneously involved in industrial sectors such as rail transit, bridge functional components, and photovoltaic power generation. Sichuan Road & Bridge's core business is highway and railway engineering construction, while the company had also previously entered the clean energy field, representing a transformation and upgrading exploration for long-term industrial development.
In response to these various development situations, Sichuan's state-owned assets authorities formulated a special swap plan, completing asset divestiture and consolidation through two main pathways. First, Xinzhu Co., Ltd. sold the bridge functional component asset group to Sichuan Road & Bridge for a total consideration of 561 million yuan, covering assets such as 100% equity of Xinzhu Jiaoke. Second, Xinzhu Co., Ltd. transferred its maglev and urban rail manufacturing assets to Shudao Rail Transit Group, and will gradually strategically exit the maglev and bridge functional component businesses.
After the integration is completed, assets related to bridge functional components will be uniformly assigned to Sichuan Road & Bridge, and rail transit manufacturing businesses will be concentrated under Shudao Rail Transit, eliminating internal competition at the source and extending the industrial synergy chain.
Concurrently, in the transformation and restructuring being advanced, Xinzhu Co., Ltd. plans to acquire a 60% equity stake in Shudao Clean Energy, held by Shudao Group, through a combination of share issuance and cash payment, with a transaction value exceeding 5.3 billion yuan. Shudao Clean Energy is Shudao Group's sole specialized clean energy operation platform, primarily engaged in hydro, wind, and photovoltaic power generation.
This transaction aligns with the overall development strategy of Sichuan Road & Bridge, can form a good synergistic effect with the company's main construction business, is conducive to the stable development of its core engineering construction business, strengthens its technological and process advantages in bridge construction, and achieves industrial chain synergy. For Xinzhu Co., Ltd., after the restructuring is implemented, it will divest assets related to the maglev and bridge functional component businesses and focus on its main clean energy power generation business, fundamentally improving its operational fundamentals.
According to Shudao Group's top-level planning, the positioning of its five listed platforms has become clearer: Sichuan Road & Bridge serves as the core carrier for transportation infrastructure; Xinzhu Co., Ltd. transforms into a dedicated capital platform for clean energy; Sichuan Chengdu-Chongqing Expressway Co., Ltd. is the high-quality expressway investment and operation platform; Shudao Equipment focuses on deep-cooling technology to build a high-end equipment and gas operation platform; and Hongda Co., Ltd. specializes in the comprehensive development and utilization of phosphorus resources and non-ferrous metals.
Rationalizing the Industrial Layout
Behind the asset swap between Xinzhu Co., Ltd. and Sichuan Road & Bridge lies the further division of functions between the two provincial-level state-owned capital platforms, Shudao Group and Sichuan Development, by the Sichuan Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.
Shudao Group was established in 2021 through the merger of the former Sichuan Communications Investment Group and Sichuan Railway Investment Group, integrating the vast majority of the province's highway and railway infrastructure resources to form a provincial transportation leader with total assets exceeding 1.6 trillion yuan. Currently, Shudao Group holds five listed companies: Sichuan Road & Bridge, Sichuan Chengdu-Chongqing Expressway, Shudao Equipment, Hongda Co., Ltd., and Xinzhu Co., Ltd., and possesses nine AAA-rated domestic credit entities.
Shudao Group's primary responsibility is to implement the "Strong Transportation Province" strategy. It has cumulatively invested in, constructed, and operated over 12,000 kilometers of expressways and over 6,700 kilometers of railways, accounting for 70% of the provincial total, and has built 43 major outbound channels, addressing the gaps in county-level expressway and high-speed rail coverage.
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Shudao Group completed an average annual investment of over 190 billion yuan, with annual revenue exceeding 250 billion yuan and total profit exceeding 8.3 billion yuan. In 2022, it became the first provincial state-owned enterprise in Sichuan to enter the Fortune Global 500 list and has remained on the list for four consecutive years.
At this stage, Shudao Group is simultaneously advancing a dual transformation, building three pillars: "comprehensive transportation, energy and minerals, and industrial-financial integration," forming a virtuous cycle where the main transportation business drives energy and minerals, and industrial returns feed back.
Sichuan Development was established in 2008 as the province's only provincial-level comprehensive investment and financing platform, with an initial registered capital of 80 billion yuan. By the end of 2025, its consolidated total assets reached 2.08 trillion yuan, with revenue of 363.3 billion yuan.
Sichuan Development has evolved through three stages: from 2008 to 2016, it served as a comprehensive investment and financing platform, building financial capital markets, establishing 21 professional industrial investment companies, and leading multiple rounds of provincial state-owned enterprise restructuring; from 2017 to 2021, it transformed into a state-owned capital operating company, improving the provincial state-owned financial system and using capital operations to amplify state-owned capital efficiency; from 2022 to the present, it has upgraded to a state-owned capital investment and operating company, anchoring its strategy to "strengthen the real economy, optimize capital, and improve the platform," focusing on four real-economy sectors: aerospace, biomedicine, advanced materials, and ecological environmental protection.
Currently, Sichuan Development's industrial sector is deployed across four emerging industries, controlling three A-share listed companies: Sichuan Development Longpan Co., Ltd., Qingxin Environment, and Lianshi Aviation. It is broadly divided into three segments: industry, Sichuan Development Capital, and Sichuan Development Platform.
Among them, its wholly-owned subsidiary, Sichuan Development Leading Capital, is positioned as a "cultivation and development + capital operation" platform for strategic emerging industries, focusing on mergers, acquisitions, and strategic investments in strategic emerging industries and future industries.
To rationalize rail transit industrial resources, Sichuan Development has integrated its rail transit equipment and operating assets with Shudao Group's rail transit sector, establishing Shudao Rail Transit Group with a registered capital of 8 billion yuan, which has been placed under Shudao Group's core subsidiary group.
Following this adjustment, Sichuan Development has exited the transportation and rail transit heavy asset sectors, gradually divesting manufacturing and infrastructure physical projects. In the future, it will focus on industrial equity investment, technology incubation, and financial capital operations, avoiding competition with Shudao Group.
The boundary between the two trillion-yuan platforms has become clearer, further addressing the chronic issues of provincial state-owned enterprises such as "overlapping businesses, independent operations, and redundant investment" in the past.
Deepening Reform Efforts
The comprehensive integration around the entire chain of transportation, rail transit, and energy is also part of the implementation of key area reforms like the "1+8" plan for Sichuan's provincial state-owned enterprises. The reform, launched at the end of 2024 and fully rolled out in 2025, focuses on four directions: strategic reorganization, specialized integration, revitalization of idle assets, and optimization of state-owned assets supervision, aiming to address pain points such as dispersed layout, homogeneous competition, and inefficient operations.
Since 2024, Sichuan's state-owned assets sector has comprehensively deepened reforms, relying on the two leading entities, Shudao Group and Sichuan Development, to coordinate the province's state-owned resources and break the pattern of resource fragmentation.
Since the implementation of the Sichuan State-owned Enterprise Reform Deepening and Improvement Action, six new provincial state-owned enterprises have been established and four have been optimized and integrated in the province, while specialized restructuring in sectors such as energy, data, culture and tourism, construction, and rail transit has been simultaneously advanced.
Since November 2024, the integration of Sichuan Investment Group and Sichuan Energy Investment Group established Sichuan Energy Development Group. Subsequently, Sichuan Science and Technology Innovation Investment Group, Sichuan Data Group, Sichuan Port Investment Group, Sichuan Scenic Area Development Group, Sichuan Urban Renewal Group, and Shudao Rail Transit Group have been successively established, marking a concentrated implementation period for integration across various fields.
Sichuan's state-owned assets authorities stated that this round of restructuring, on one hand, consolidates the position of state-owned enterprises as the "pillar" of the national economy, and on the other hand, helps the province build and strengthen industrial clusters and chains, providing state-owned capital support for high-quality development.
Data from the official WeChat account of Sichuan's state-owned assets shows that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the total assets of Sichuan's local state-owned enterprises consecutively crossed 13 trillion-yuan thresholds, reaching 23.23 trillion yuan; operating revenue was 2.42 trillion yuan, and total profit exceeded 100 billion yuan, reaching 114.1 billion yuan. State-owned capital has continued to gather in the real economy and emerging industries, significantly enhancing the competitiveness of state-owned enterprises.
By the end of 2025, the main tasks of the "1+8" reform for Sichuan's provincial enterprises were basically completed. 2026, as the first year of the "15th Five-Year Plan," sees Sichuan's state-owned assets sector continuing to optimize the layout of the state-owned economy and deepen state-owned enterprise reforms.
At the beginning of the year, relevant officials from the Sichuan Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission stated at the provincial state-owned assets and enterprise work conference that efforts should be accelerated to develop and cluster advantageous industries and emerging industries. The goal is to further increase the proportion of provincial enterprise investment in the six advantageous industries and emerging industries, achieve investment growth in emerging industries of no less than 15%, and achieve asset and revenue growth of 20% and 15% or more, respectively.
Key tasks for Sichuan's state-owned assets and enterprises in 2026 include: accelerating the construction of major projects such as the Chengdu-Dazhou-Wanzhou Railway, the Chengdu-Nanchong Expressway expansion, and the Nanjiang and Pingshan pumped-storage power stations; strengthening investment-driven growth to generate more physical workload; revitalizing idle and inefficient state-owned assets through measures like ownership confirmation, asset securitization, and market-oriented operations to promote resource capitalization, asset securitization, and activate stock for increased revenue; and continuing to deepen restructuring and integration, promoting the concentration of high-quality assets in backbone enterprises, and optimizing the layout of major productive forces.
Sichuan's state-owned assets officials require solid work on the "latter half" of the "1+8" reform, accelerating the specialized integration of enterprises under Sichuan Energy Development Group, and promoting culture and tourism, construction, and rail transit enterprises to move from "physical integration" to "chemical fusion."
Since May this year, the "Plan for Further Deepening State-owned Assets and Enterprise Reform (2026-2029)" has been issued, with various localities successively holding meetings to redeploy and advance state-owned assets and enterprise reform work, intensively launching a new round of state-owned assets and enterprise reform.
Industry insiders point out that the "Plan" closely aligns with the goals for state-owned assets and enterprise reform during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, placing greater emphasis on the initiative in optimizing the layout and adjusting the structure of the state-owned economy. It stresses using market-oriented methods to solve long-standing issues such as resource dispersion, redundant construction, and unclear main businesses.
The new round of strategic reorganization no longer simply pursues enterprise scale, but instead takes whether it can strengthen national strategic shortcomings and lead industrial upgrading as the core. It clearly defines horizontal integration of similar businesses and vertical integration along the industrial chain's upstream and downstream, standardizing and resolving issues of homogeneous competition and redundant construction to enhance the overall allocation efficiency of state-owned capital.
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