In 2025, insurance capital's activity in disclosing substantial shareholdings in listed companies continued to intensify. According to disclosures from the Insurance Association of China, by the end of 2025, the number of such disclosures by insurance funds had exceeded 30 for the year, marking a significant increase compared to previous years and reaching a new high in frequency in recent years.
Looking at the targets of these disclosures, the financial sector was particularly favored by insurance capital. Data shows that there were 15 disclosures related to the financial sector during the year, covering 6 banks and 2 insurance companies. Additionally, utilities and transportation were also key areas for insurance capital allocation. In terms of the market for these activities, H-shares served as the primary venue for insurance fund disclosures.
Industry insiders note that listed banks are generally favored by insurance capital due to their stable operations, good stock liquidity, generally high dividend yields, stable payouts, and potential for appreciation. Furthermore, H-shares often trade at a discount compared to their A-share counterparts, offering greater potential for value appreciation. Investments made through the Stock Connect program also carry certain tax advantages, making them an additional focus for increased allocation by insurance funds.
Over the past two years, against a backdrop of policies promoting the entry of "long-term capital" into the market, insurance companies have steadily increased their scale of equity market investments. The number of shareholding disclosures by insurers rose to 20 in 2024 and climbed further to 35 in 2025.
In terms of participating entities, a total of 14 insurance institutions made shareholding disclosures this year. Among them, Ping An Life Insurance was the most active, leading with 12 disclosures. It was followed by Great Wall Life Insurance and China Post Life Insurance, each with 4 disclosures. Rui Zhong Life Insurance made 3 disclosures, while institutions such as Taikang Life Insurance and New China Life Insurance each made 2 disclosures. The main participants were predominantly large and medium-sized insurers, including Ping An Life Insurance, China Life Insurance, China Post Life Insurance, and Great Wall Life Insurance.
Analyzing the monthly frequency of disclosures, August was the most active month for insurance capital, with a single-month total of 7 disclosures. During that month, Ping An Life Insurance accounted for 3 disclosures, with targets including China Life Insurance, China Pacific Insurance, and Postal Savings Bank. Its cumulative stake in Postal Savings Bank had reached 15%. The methods of disclosure varied, including direct purchases on the secondary market, as well as negotiated transfers, participation in additional share issues, cornerstone investments in IPOs, and even passive triggering of disclosure thresholds due to share exchanges during mergers. For instance, when Fengtiao Technology issued 18.7444 million H-shares listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Taikang Life Insurance participated as a cornerstone investor in its IPO, with an investment book value of 179 million yuan, accounting for 8.69% of the H-share category.
"From the perspective of the capital market, insurance funds possess characteristics such as long-term horizons and stable investment styles, providing sufficient stability. They are an important force supporting the sustained and healthy development of the stock market," stated Zhou Jin, Partner of Financial Industry Consulting at Baker Tilly China, in a previous interview. "Increasing the participation of insurance funds in the stock market helps reduce market volatility, promotes value investment理念, and improves the functioning of the capital market. From the insurers' perspective, increasing allocation to equity assets and holding them long-term allows for better implementation of long-term value investment strategies, focusing on matching long-term liabilities and achieving business performance that transcends cycles."
It has been observed that since 2024, central authorities and financial regulators have gradually expanded the pilot scope for long-term investments by insurance funds, increased the number of pilot enterprises and the amount of capital involved, and provided incentives through assessment mechanisms and capital constraint rules. For example, operable assessment standards have been proposed regarding the proportion and stability of insurance capital from large state-owned insurers entering the A-share market, with assessment indicator weights for three-to-five-year cycles set no lower than 60%, effectively promoting the implementation of long-term assessment mechanisms.
Furthermore, new accounting standards have also played a catalytic role in insurers' disclosure activities. "Starting from 2024, listed insurers began implementing new accounting standards. The new financial instrument accounting standard IFRS 9 requires reflecting the market value of equity investments on the asset side. Therefore, insurers hope to achieve equity method accounting through substantial shareholding disclosures, thereby reducing volatility in current profit and loss. This factor has led to increased disclosure activities by insurers," Zhou Jin explained.
In terms of sector distribution, financial stocks remain the absolute core focus for insurance capital disclosures. Throughout the year, 15 disclosures involved financial listed companies, mostly concentrated in the H-shares of banks. Simultaneously, assets in utilities or quasi-utility sectors such as water, power, environmental protection, and new energy have frequently entered the allocation视野 of insurance funds. These targets generally share characteristics such as relatively stable cash flows, clear dividend expectations, and lower valuation centers.
The characteristics of the companies targeted for disclosure indicate that insurance capital primarily prefers investment targets with low valuations, high dividend yields, high payouts, and strong earnings certainty, building a "safety cushion" for equity investments. This is because, under the new accounting standards, high-dividend stocks can be classified into the FVOCI account, avoiding significant fluctuations in the income statement. Bank stocks are typical representatives of low volatility and high dividends, especially H-share banks whose dividend yields are superior to long-term bond yields.
"In terms of target selection for shareholding disclosures, listed banks are generally favored by insurance capital due to their stable operations, good stock liquidity, generally high dividend yields, stable payouts, and potential for appreciation," Zhou Jin stated. Bank stocks currently align well with these characteristics, making them a key area for insurance capital disclosures. Moreover, the valuation discount of H-shares compared to A-shares offers greater appreciation potential, and investments via Stock Connect carry certain tax advantages, making them another focus for increased allocation by insurance funds.
An analysis was conducted on the 6 banks targeted by insurance capital disclosures in 2025, examining dimensions such as net profit, return on equity, and cash flow per share. In terms of return on equity, among these 6 banks, the lowest was close to 6%, while the highest reached 11.55%. Regarding dividends, all 6 banks demonstrated consistent dividend policies, with China Merchants Bank having the highest number of cumulative dividend distributions since its listing, totaling 24 times.
Looking at performance for the first three quarters of 2025, except for China Zheshang Bank which experienced a year-on-year decline in net profit, the net profits of the other 5 banks all increased year-on-year. Specifically, Postal Savings Bank achieved a net profit attributable to parent company shareholders of 76.562 billion yuan, up 0.98% year-on-year; China Merchants Bank achieved 113.772 billion yuan, up 0.52%; Bank of Hangzhou achieved 15.885 billion yuan, up 14.53%; Agricultural Bank of China achieved 220.859 billion yuan, up 3.03%; and China CITIC Bank achieved 53.391 billion yuan, up 3.02%.
The disclosure activities of insurance funds have also garnered market attention and recognition. Judging from the stock price trends of the targeted listed companies, their prices often experience a period of short-term strength following the disclosure.
Taking Ping An Insurance as an example, its K-line chart movements in 2025 appeared to loosely correlate with its disclosure activities. For instance, from mid-August to mid-September 2025, Ping An had multiple consecutive disclosure activities. Observing the K-line trend, Ping An's stock price began to rise towards the end of September 2025. Despite some fluctuations in between, the overall upward trend remained intact.
Kaiyuan Securities indicated that insurance capital disclosures send two positive signals beneficial for the subsequent pricing of insurance stocks: on one hand, insurance capital will consider dividend realization from a longer-term perspective; on the other hand, leading insurers express confidence in the trend of the insurance industry's fundamentals bottoming out and stabilizing over the medium to long term.
Data from East Money Choice shows that in 2025, PICC Group, China Life Insurance, China Pacific Insurance, Ping An Insurance, and New China Life Insurance saw cumulative annual increases of 21.21%, 10.39%, 26.60%, 35.87%, and 46.03%, respectively. Except for China Life Insurance, the stock prices of the other four insurers outperformed the CSI 300 Index during the same period. Within the financial subsectors, the annual gains of insurance stocks far exceeded those of other sectors like banking and securities.
Entering 2026, the A-share insurance sector continued its strong performance. At the close on January 6th, the insurance sector overall rose by over 4.22%, outperforming the CSI 300 Index by approximately 2.67 percentage points. Among them, China Life Insurance's stock price rose by 2.9%, Ping An Insurance by 2.71%, China Pacific Insurance by 5.08%, PICC Group by 3.92%, and New China Life Insurance by 6.48%. Analysts from securities firms noted that the recent strong performance of insurance stocks is mainly attributable to two factors: first, the new business value growth during the insurance sector's peak season exceeded expectations; second, the further recovery of the equity market, coupled with the continuously increasing equity allocation of insurance funds as a major force of long-term capital entering the market, makes investment performance growth promising.
Huachuang Securities suggested that the motivations behind insurance capital disclosures can be broadly divided into two categories: one based on dividend yield considerations, and the other based on return on equity considerations. Looking ahead to 2026, it is expected that these two motivations will remain relevant, and the wave of insurance capital disclosures is likely to continue.
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