(Yicai) Aug. 1 -- Major investors are diverging in their outlook on China International Capital Corporation, as internet behemoth Tencent Holdings trims its stake in the leading Chinese investment bank, while two major asset management firms, the US’ Blackrock and China’s E Fund, hike their stakes.

Tencent pared its stake in CICC by 4.96 million shares on July 25 at an average price of HKD21.26 (USD2.71) per share, cashing out around HKD105 million (USD13.3 million), the Hong Kong bourse said on July 30. The sale diluted Tencent’s holdings to 10.75 percent from 11.01 percent.

Around the same time that Shenzhen-based Tencent was selling, the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock and Chinese mutual fund giant E Fund were buying. 

BlackRock splashed out HKD25.5 million (USD3.2 million) on July 22 to purchase 1.26 million CICC shares at an average price of HKD20.21 (USD2.60) each, according to a HKEX filing made on July 29. This pushed up BlackRock’s stake in Beijing-based CICC to 5.01 percent from 4.94 percent.

E Fund followed suit on July 25, snapping up 7.14 million shares at an average price of HKD21.44 (USD2.73) each, with a total investment of HKD153 million (USD19.5 million). This lifted Guangzhou-based E Fund’s stake in CICC to 5.13 percent from 4.76 percent.

However, E Fund’s buying spree may have been driven by one of its Exchange-Traded Funds making passive purchases. E Fund bought into the Hong Kong-listed stocks of seven other brokerages, including China Securities and China Merchants Securities, the Hong Kong stock exchange reported on July 28 and July 29. The holdings are all within a tightly controlled range of between 5 percent and 7 percent, which is consistent with how ETFs operate.

CICC recently forecast that, thanks to strong growth across all business segments, its net profit for the first half will expand by between 55 percent and 78 percent from a year earlier, falling between CNY3.4 billion (USD471.6 million) and CNY3.9 billion.

Central Huijin Investment, which is the country’s sovereign wealth fund, was CICC’s largest shareholder last year with 66.2 percent of its Hong Kong stock, accounting for 40.1 percent of total share capital, according to CICC’s 2024 financial report. Tencent was the firm’s second-largest stakeholder, holding 11.3 percent of its Hong Kong shares and 4.4 percent of its total share capital), while Alibaba was the third-largest shareholder owning 10.6 percent of its Hong Kong shares and 4.2 percent overall.

Editor: Kim Taylor