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CICC: How do you view the new pattern of A-share repurchases?

Zhitongcaijing·08/03/2026 01:09:04

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The Zhitong Finance App learned that the fundamentals of some leading companies in the growth sector are still resilient, with listed companies conveying confidence in their value and long-term development prospects through repurchases, holdings increases, and dividends; the interim results gradually disclosed in August are expected to provide fundamental support to the market; compared with major overseas markets, the overall valuation of A-shares is still attractive; the continued entry of medium- to long-term capital into the market will also help enhance the internal stability of the market.

CICC's main views are as follows:

Recently, A-share listed companies have intensively repurchased and increased their holdings, and large repurchase projects have increased significantly

Since the second half of the year, due to internal and external factors, the A-share market has shown obvious phased adjustments. Market risk appetite and transactions have declined somewhat. The correction in the technology sector, which had a large increase in the previous period and was crowded with transactions, was particularly obvious. In this context, since July, a number of listed companies have intensively disclosed their repurchase plans and accelerated the implementation of existing plans, conveyed confidence in the company's value and long-term development prospects through practical actions, and stabilized market expectations.

The number and scale of A-share repurchase plans rose significantly in July. According to Wind statistics, in July, A-share listed companies issued a total of 266 repurchase plans, with a proposed repurchase amount of about 90 billion yuan; the same period in 2025 was 150 and 16.5 billion yuan, respectively, an increase of 76% and 444% over the previous year. From January to July 2026, the total amount of A-share repurchases was 86.6 billion yuan, of which the actual monthly repurchase amount in July was 21.7 billion yuan, up 46% year-on-year and 33% month-on-month.

In terms of industry distribution, the new energy, consumption, and technology sectors rank first in terms of repurchases. Since the beginning of 2026, among companies that have disclosed the progress of repurchases, the power equipment, household appliances, electronics, pharmaceutics, and food and beverage industries have the highest repurchase amounts, accounting for 19%, 13%, 11%, 9%, and 7%, respectively. In July, some leaders in the new energy and technology sector, which had large fluctuations in the previous period, intensively launched large repurchase plans. For example, Ningde Times plans to repurchase 20 to 40 billion yuan of shares to cancel and reduce the company's registered capital, making it the largest A-share repurchase project so far; Zhaoyi Innovation plans to repurchase 1-2 billion yuan and completely cancel it; Zhongji Xuchuang plans to repurchase 4 to 8 billion yuan; IFF plans to repurchase 1-2 billion yuan. In the same period, several companies also successively disclosed plans to increase shareholders' holdings and mid-term dividend plans. The collaborative promotion of shareholding, repurchase, and dividends not only reflects the company's confidence in its own value and long-term development prospects, but also helps stabilize market expectations, improve investor sentiment, and give back to shareholders with actual investment.

The price cap set by most repurchase plans is significantly higher than the current stock price, implying that there is more room for valuation repair. As of July 31, in the repurchase plan newly disclosed in July, the upper limit of the repurchase price set by about 85% of companies was higher than the current stock price, and the median premium rate of the upper limit compared to the current price was about 34%; of these, 79% of companies had a premium of more than 20%, and 12% of companies had a premium of more than 50%. The higher repurchase price cap reflects the company's recognition of its long-term value, and can also provide a certain reference for the market to determine its reasonable value range.

Cancellation repurchases are gradually increasing, and shareholder return attributes have been further enhanced. In the repurchase plan newly disclosed in July, several companies clearly used the repurchase of shares to cancel capital cuts. For example, Haitian Flavors plans to cancel 70% of the repurchased shares, and Ningde Times and Liugong have also made it clear that they will cancel all of the repurchased shares and reduce registered capital accordingly. At the same time, companies such as Xingfa Group, Midea Group, Jingke Energy, and Hongwei Technology changed the original plan to cancel the repurchased shares that were originally planned to protect the company's value and shareholders' rights or implement equity incentives to cancel capital cuts. Compared to temporarily using treasury stock or for equity incentives, cancellation repurchases will permanently reduce total share capital, increase earnings per share when profits remain the same, and help increase shareholder returns.

The continuous improvement of the repurchase system and financial instruments is also an important support for this round of repurchases heating up. The exploration of the A-share repurchase system began in 1993, and since then it has experienced many rounds of important changes in 2005, 2018, 2022, and 2023, respectively. On September 24, 2024, the Securities Regulatory Commission sought public comments on the “Guidelines for the Supervision of Listed Companies No. 10 - Market Value Management (Draft for Comments)”. On the same day, the central bank announced the creation of stock repurchase and refinancing tools to guide financial institutions to provide loans to eligible listed companies and major shareholders, and promote listed companies to actively use tools such as repurchases and shareholder holdings increase to manage market value. In January 2025, the policy was further optimized, the loan's own capital requirement was reduced from 30% to 10%, and the loan period was extended from 1 year to 3 years. According to the central bank's latest report, by the end of March 2026, financial institutions had signed loan contracts worth about 370 billion yuan to repurchase shares and increase their holdings, and had already issued more than 180 billion yuan. Since July, several companies have simultaneously disclosed special loan arrangements in their repurchase plans. For example, Shiyun Circuit plans to use 200 million yuan to repurchase shares, and has already obtained a 270 million yuan loan commitment letter from China Construction Bank; Honggong Technology has also obtained a special loan commitment letter from China CITIC Bank to repurchase shares. The normalization of repurchases to increase holdings and reloans helps ease restrictions on repurchase capital for listed companies, promote companies to more actively manage market value, and thus help the healthy operation of the capital market.

The share of market value management in repurchase purposes has increased. Since the implementation of the new market value management regulations at the end of 2024, the share of market value management repurchases has increased markedly. Since 2026, the share of repurchase projects and scale in the market value management category has been 17.2% and 44.2% respectively, up from 16.7% and 42% in 2025. This change shows that A-share repurchases are being dominated by equity incentive tools in the past, gradually shifting to an important method of stabilizing investors' expectations and increasing the company's investment value and shareholder returns. Previous research has shown that compared to other repurchase purposes, market value management repurchases have higher short-term, medium- and long-term excess returns.

Judging from the nature of enterprises, private enterprises are still the main players in A-share repurchases, and the participation of local state-owned enterprises has increased markedly in the past two years. Since 2017, private enterprises have continued to account for more than 50% of the repurchase scale; the share of local state-owned enterprises in the repurchase scale has risen from 8% in 2024 to 16% and 15% in 2025 and the beginning of 2026. The A-share repurchase market is gradually forming a pattern of joint efforts between leading private enterprises and local state-owned enterprises.

At the market level, the current level of A-shares is still at a relatively low point since this year. Recovery is ongoing. Most of the factors that triggered this round of adjustments were short-term, phased, and have been fully digested. After the “Super Week” (July 27-31), which had many eventful factors, external uncertainty eased marginally: the Federal Reserve's July FOMC meeting kept interest rates unchanged, and despite the hawkish wording of the statement, did not further tighten monetary policy; South Korea's government response to leveraged risks increased, and the deleveraging process progressed rapidly; financial reports of global technology leaders revealed one after another, although the market's return on high capital expenditure is still divided, AI computing power demand and industry chain sentiment have not yet seen a trend reversal; Trump said on August 1 that he had agreed to cancel the attack on Iran and the US The situation in Iraq has calmed down again. Internally, the high level of trading congestion in the tech sector in the early stages has clearly declined, and panic and selling pressure have also been relieved. Meanwhile, positive elements are piling up. Currently, the fundamentals of leading companies in some growth sectors are still resilient. Listed companies convey confidence in their value and long-term development prospects through repurchases, increases in holdings, and dividends; the interim results gradually disclosed in August are expected to provide fundamental support to the market; compared with major overseas markets, the overall valuation of A-shares is still attractive; subsequent medium- and long-term capital continues to enter the market, which also helps enhance internal stability in the market.

From a medium-term perspective, I am firmly optimistic that the A-share market will continue its volatile upward trend since 924. The restructuring of the international order and the resonance of China's industrial innovation trend are the core driving forces driving the current round of market growth and the revaluation of China's assets. Currently, these two major conditions have not wavered and will continue to support China's asset performance. In terms of allocation, companies that have recently announced repurchases are expected to show good relative performance. As investor sentiment picks up, there is room for recovery in stock prices.

Chart 1: Amount of completed A-share repurchases