Citic Securities among five of China’s top brokerages under probe amid stock market slump
Haitong, GF, Huatai, Founder and Citic Securities all face mainland regulator’s wrath as Beijing intensifies crackdown amid market slump
Four of China's brokerages last night announced they were being probed by the regulators for suspected failure to review and verify clients’ identities, while state media reported that Citic Securities was also under regulatory cross hairs.
The latest crackdown came amid renewed efforts by Chinese authorities to stem a free fall in stocks, which have lost 22 per cent in the past four days.
Haitong Securities, GF Securities, Huatai Securities and Founder Securities all announced through stock exchange statements that they had received notices from the China Securities Regulatory Commission about the probe and that they would cooperate with the industry watchdog and fulfil all due information disclosure obligations.
Separately, Xinhua reported late last night that eight people from Citic Securities were being investigated for possible involvement in illegal securities trade.
A staff member surnamed Wang from Caijing magazine was also being probed for spreading rumours.
A current and a former staff member at the CSRC were also being investigated for suspected insider trading, it said.
The latest crackdown is a throwback to the flurry of punishments meted out to major securities firms, including Haitong, Huatai and Citic, by the regulator earlier this year for violating margin trading rules. The only difference is that the authorities were trying to cool down a runaway stock market boom back then.