China Wanxiang Holding Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Wanxiang holding) is expected to become China’s first private financial holding company.
Before the Spring Festival holiday, the central bank officially accepted the application of Wanxiang holdings to establish a financial holding company. Wanxiang Holdings has also become the first applicant of private financial holding company. Since May last year, the central bank has accepted the applications of China CITIC, Everbright Group and Beijing financial holding.
Wanxiang holdings was founded by Lu weiding, the son of Lu Guanqiu, an outstanding private entrepreneur. Its financial license has a wide layout, including not only traditional insurance, banking, third-party payment, trust, futures, leasing and other businesses, but also financial technology fields such as blockchain, financial data and artificial intelligence.
According to people familiar with the matter, Wanxiang Holdings has previously formulated the company’s strategic development goals for the next three years, of which applying for financial holding license is one of its core goals, and the other goal is to apply for brokerage license.
layout of private financial holding license
On the last working day before the Spring Festival holiday, the central bank announced the acceptance notice of the application for the establishment of China’s first private financial holding company, which means that the door of private financial holding was officially opened.
On January 30, the central bank announced that it had accepted the application for administrative license of China Wanxiang Holding Co., Ltd. for the establishment of a financial holding company in accordance with the decision of the State Council on the implementation of the access management of financial holding companies and the Trial Measures for the supervision and administration of financial holding companies.
According to the disclosed information, the acceptance date of Wanxiang holdings is January 29. The main shareholder of Wanxiang holding is Lu weiding, holding 74.57%; Shanghai guandingze Co., Ltd., holding 20%; Xiao Feng, holding 5%.
Lu weiding, the son of Lu Guanqiu, an outstanding private entrepreneur in China, founded Wanxiang holdings.
A person from a financial institution said that in the past few years, some private capital has blindly expanded to the financial industry, lack of isolation mechanism, continuous accumulation of risks and more risk disposal events. Now, Wanxiang holdings will be among the financial holding companies, which is expected to provide some reference for the standardized development of private finance.
The information disclosed on the same day also showed that at the end of last year, the central bank accepted the application of Shenzhen Zhaorong Investment Holding Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhaorong holding) to establish a financial holding company. The company is 100% owned by China Merchants Shipping Co., Ltd.
According to the disclosure order, Wanxiang holdings and Zhaorong investment have become the third batch of acceptance institutions announced by the central bank. Previously, CITIC Group, Everbright Group and Beijing Financial Holding have been accepted by the central bank. Among them, Beijing financial holding is the first local financial holding applicant.
According to the requirements, the central bank will make a written decision on approval or disapproval within 6 months after acceptance.
what are the requirements for financial holding companies?
In September 2020, the decision of the State Council on the implementation of the access management of financial holding companies and the Trial Measures for the supervision and administration of financial holding companies were officially unveiled, which improved the regulatory framework of financial holding companies.
According to the requirements, a financial holding company refers to a limited liability company or joint stock limited company that is established according to law, controls or actually controls two or more different types of financial institutions, only carries out equity investment management and does not directly engage in commercial business activities.
The types of financial institutions involved include banks, financial leasing, trusts, financial asset management companies, securities, public funds, futures, life insurance companies, property insurance companies, reinsurance companies, insurance asset management companies and other institutions.
According to the regulations, there are two main criteria for the identification of financial holding companies. If the financial institutions controlled or actually controlled include commercial banks, the total assets of financial institutions shall not be less than 500 billion yuan, or the total assets of financial institutions shall not be less than 500 billion yuan, but the total assets of financial institutions of other types other than commercial banks shall not be less than 100 billion yuan, or the total assets entrusted to management shall not be less than 500 billion yuan; If the financial institutions controlled or actually controlled do not include commercial banks, the total assets of the financial institutions shall not be less than 100 billion yuan or the total assets entrusted to management shall not be less than 500 billion yuan.
According to the regulations, the people’s Bank of China will carry out access management and continuous supervision of financial holding companies in accordance with laws and regulations, prevent and resolve systemic risks, and enhance the ability of financial services to the real economy.
financial territory standing on the air outlet
From the financial data, Wanxiang holding applies the recognition standard of Article 2 financial holding company. By the end of June last year, the total assets of Wanxiang holdings had reached 150 billion yuan.
This is also related to the business structure of Wanxiang holdings. Public information shows that Wanxiang holdings is a large financial investment and industrial investment operation platform in China. It invests in insurance (life insurance), Internet Finance (third-party payment, financial data services, blockchain technology, etc.) and other financial businesses (trust, futures, leasing) in the form of holding and equity participation, so as to obtain long-term and stable investment returns.
From the perspective of operation ideas, Wanxiang Holdings has obtained several rare licenses on the outlet of financial reform and innovation, including life insurance license, public fund license, third-party payment license, Internet banking license, etc. it has also arranged in advance the hot scientific and technological fields such as blockchain and artificial intelligence in recent years.
From the perspective of financial business territory, Wanxiang holding’s overall business takes insurance business as the core, and insurance business contributes more than half of the profits of the whole group.
In 2002, Wanxiang Group, as the largest shareholder, initiated the establishment of Minsheng life insurance. After that, Lu weiding and Wanxiang holdings finally held 43.84% of the shares of Minsheng life insurance through multiple rounds of transfer and capital increase. Minsheng life has also become the main body and core enterprise of Wanxiang holding insurance business.
Although the overall strength of Minsheng life is in the middle of the industry, it has obtained many scarce licenses. The company holds 50% equity of Zheshang fund, 41% equity of Tonglian payment and China Zheshang Bank Co.Ltd(601916) part equity through Minsheng life insurance.
Wanxiang trust, which holds 76% of the shares, is the main body of Wanxiang holding trust industry. It is noteworthy that Wanxiang Sannong group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wanxiang trust, has become the second largest shareholder of e-commerce bank with a shareholding ratio of 26.78%, successfully capturing the technical outlet of Internet bank.
In addition, Wanxiang holdings also holds 5.99% equity of Shangrao bank and 100% equity of Wanxiang leasing and Tonghui futures.
In 2015, Wanxiang holdings began to lay out blockchain, artificial intelligence and other technology outlets in advance. Tonglian data is a financial data operation platform in which the company holds 100% of the shares. Its products include radish investment and research, an intelligent investment and research platform based on big data and machine learning, youkuang, a quantitative research and trading platform, and magic cube, a fof fund investment management platform. Wanxiang blockchain is a well-known technology platform of Wanxiang holdings and a leading enterprise in the field of blockchain in China, constantly improving the ecological construction of blockchain. At present, it is promoting the integration of blockchain technology with other technologies and the implementation of projects.
On the whole, Wanxiang holding’s financial territory license is relatively neat, except for the lack of brokerage license.
The reporter learned that Wanxiang holdings had previously set development goals for the next three years. Among them, obtaining the license of financial holding company is one of the objectives of Wanxiang holding, and another core objective is to apply for the license of securities companies.
