On August 25, the once prosperous China Evergrande officially delisted from the Hong Kong stock market. Shortly after, the Bank of Shengjing, which was deeply tied to Evergrande, also announced its delisting. Analysts point out that this is not only a continuation of Evergrande’s debt crisis, but also a brutal looting of bank assets by capital, with this storm engulfing the financial stability of the entire Northeast region.
Starting at 9 a.m. on August 25, China Evergrande was officially delisted from the stock market, ending its 16 years of history in the Hong Kong stock market. On the evening of August 26, Shengjing Bank suddenly announced the initiation of a delisting plan from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
According to Shengjing Bank’s announcement, Shenyang Shengjing Financial Holdings Group Co., Ltd. (referred to as “Shengjing Financial Holdings”) and its concerted action proposed a cash offer to acquire all remaining issued H shares and domestic shares of Shengjing Bank. The offer price for H shares is HK$1.32 per share, and for domestic shares is RMB 1.20 per share.
The total cost of this acquisition is approximately 6.652 billion yuan, with the acquisition of H shares costing 2.967 billion Hong Kong dollars and the acquisition of domestic shares costing 3.929 billion yuan. After the acquisition is completed, Shengjing Bank will apply for delisting according to the listing rules.
Shengjing Bank explained that the core reason for its delisting is that its Hong Kong stock market status has lost its substantive meaning. First, the trading volume is almost drying up. In the past 90 trading days, the daily average turnover of Shengjing Bank’s H shares only accounted for 0.0025% of the issued shares, with liquidity almost frozen, losing the ability to finance through equity.
Second, the stock price has been in a long-term decline. From the beginning of 2025 to the suspension, the Hang Seng Index rose by 30.05%, the Mainland Bank Index by 28.39%, but Shengjing Bank’s stock price fell by 4.20%, deviating significantly from the market.
According to the announcement, Shengjing Financial Holdings holds 20.79% of the shares, forming a concerted action with other state-owned enterprises under the Shenyang State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, collectively holding 37.23%. The proportion of independent H-share shareholders is 25.55%.
Shengjing Bank, established in September 1997, was formerly known as Shenyang City Commercial Bank, renamed to Shengjing Bank in February 2007, and listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in December 2014.
As the earliest and largest headquarters bank in the Northeast region, Shengjing Bank’s assets surpassed one trillion yuan for the first time in 2019. However, its fate took a sharp turn downwards after a deep entanglement with Evergrande.
In 2016, Evergrande rapidly became the largest shareholder of Shengjing Bank through multiple equity acquisitions. By 2019, its ownership stake had risen to 36.4%, achieving absolute control.
From 2018 to 2023, Evergrande successively deployed executives such as Qiu Huo Fa, Zhu Jialin, and Pan Darong to the core management of Shengjing Bank, fully infiltrating its corporate governance and credit decision-making system.
This series of operations completely undermined the independence of Shengjing Bank. Under the substantial control of Evergrande, the bank’s credit resources flowed massively and centrally towards Evergrande-related enterprises.
An article from the financial commentator “Wenxuan Finance” indicated that the fate of Shengjing Bank intertwined with Evergrande can be described as a brutal battle of capital looting.
Evergrande transformed the bank into its own “ATM” through methods such as equity pledge and asset mortgage. Due to the lack of fully transparent disclosure of the specific financial transactions between Evergrande and Shengjing Bank, it is difficult for the outside world to obtain and accurately calculate this information.
Since 2020, Shengjing Bank’s operating conditions have deteriorated rapidly, with operating income and net profit plummeting continuously, facing enormous pressure on asset quality.
In recent years, influenced by Evergrande’s crisis, Shengjing Bank has been in an unprecedented predicament. Its net interest margin is closely following the regulatory red line.
In 2024, Shengjing Bank’s operating income was 8.577 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.57%; its net profit attributable to the parent company was 621 million yuan, down 15.21% year-on-year. This marked the bank’s second consecutive year of falling into the dual downturn of operating income and net profit.
Compared to its peak in 2019, Shengjing Bank’s operating income in 2024 was less than half of that in 2019, at 21.007 billion yuan, and its net profit was only about one-ninth of that in 2019, at around 5.443 billion yuan.
In 2024, Shengjing Bank’s net interest income was 6.89 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 22.33%, shrinking nearly ten billion from the peak of 16.35 billion yuan in 2019, with a drop of 0.16 percentage points compared to 2023. Over the five years, Shengjing Bank’s net interest income has shrunk by approximately 57.9%.
According to data from the China Banking Regulatory Commission, in the fourth quarter of 2024, the net interest margin of commercial banks was 1.52%, with Shengjing Bank lagging behind the industry average by 0.72 percentage points, showing a significant gap.
Meanwhile, both the corporate banking and retail banking businesses of Shengjing Bank have experienced declines in revenue. The corporate banking business realized operating income of 4.95 billion yuan, a 27% decrease from the previous year; while the retail banking business achieved operating income of 2.47 billion yuan, down 10% year-on-year.
The outlook for personal loan asset quality is also not optimistic. By the end of 2024, Shengjing Bank’s non-performing loan ratio for personal loans was as high as 2.9%, with the mortgage loan delinquency rate peaking at 3.66%.
Evergrande, since facing a debt crisis, sold its 1.75 billion non-tradable domestic shares to Shengjing Financial Holdings at 5.7 yuan per share, totaling 9.99 billion yuan. However, Evergrande failed to repay the loan, and the 1.282 billion shares pledged were executed, and eventually auctioned publicly in September 2022, acquired by a state-owned enterprise under the Shenyang State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.
Financial blogger “Huihu” mentioned that during Xu Jiayin’s most prosperous period, he not only managed to control Jiangsu Bank, Shen Development Bank, and other banks but also became the largest shareholder of Shengjing Bank, the largest bank in northeast China. Shengjing Bank became an ATM for Evergrande during a certain period. With Evergrande collapsing, Shengjing Bank also fell into the vortex of bankruptcy.
He said that Shengjing Bank must now bear the bitter consequences of its “collaboration” with Evergrande, and now it must completely exit the market because it can’t continue playing, as paper can never cover up a fire. He predicted that in a few days, the Liaoning Provincial Commission for Discipline and Inspection or other local judicial departments might announce significant corruption cases within Shengjing Bank, indicating that for it to delist, relevant leaders or parties involved have to become “scapegoats”.
Shengjing Bank’s delisting is not an isolated case. In fact, in the Northeast region, a “delisting wave” targeting banks listed on the Hong Kong stock market has quietly unfolded. Previously, two Hong Kong-listed banks in the Northeast region have already delisted or are in the process of delisting. Three out of the four listed banks in the Northeast region have already delisted or are in the process of delisting, illustrating the severe challenges encountered by regional banks on the path to public listing.
In January 2024, Liaoning Financial Holdings Group proposed a comprehensive cash offer to acquire Jinzhou Bank, at HK$1.38 per share (H shares) and RMB 1.25 per share (domestic shares), and planned to withdraw its H shares from the listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
On April 15, 2024, Jinzhou Bank officially delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the first mainland bank to delist.
On the evening of July 3, 2025, Jutian Rural Commercial Bank announced that Jilin Financial Holdings Group initiated a cash offer to acquire all issued H shares (at HK$0.70 per share) and domestic shares (at RMB 0.63 per share).
Reportedly, Jutian Rural Commercial Bank is expected to incur a net loss of 1.7 to 1.9 billion yuan in 2024, facing significant operating pressure.