Huatai Securities Brand Guidelines: Nanjing 1991, Three Listings & the HTSC Name

A provincial broker that changed its name four times.

Huatai Securities began in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, in 1991. Its first name was Jiangsu Securities Company. English Wikipedia dates its founding to 9 April 1991; Chinese Wikipedia gives 26 May 1991 for the founding of the provincial securities company that preceded it. Both agree on the year and the city, and Nanjing is still where the group has its headquarters.

The name changed several times in the 1990s. Chinese Wikipedia says that in March 1993 the Jiangsu economic-system reform commission approved the company as a pilot for conversion into a joint-stock firm, and it became Jiangsu Oriental Securities. In January 1998, after new capital was approved, it was renamed Jiangsu Securities Co., Ltd. In December 1999 a further share issue came with the name it uses today, Huatai Securities; English Wikipedia also gives 1999 for the change.

Growth in the 2000s came partly through other brokers. In April 2005, Chinese Wikipedia says, the China Securities Regulatory Commission entrusted Huatai with the custody of Asia Securities, formerly Three Gorges Securities, whose branches were later folded into Huatai. In November 2006 it set up Huatai International Financial Holdings in Hong Kong as its flagship for overseas business, and in the same year it bought into United Securities. By July 2009 Huatai was United Securities’ largest shareholder and the firm had been renamed Huatai United Securities; in 2011 Huatai took over its 77 brokerage branches, and Huatai United stopped doing brokerage business. English Wikipedia adds that in 2008 the regulator approved Huatai as a Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor, allowing it to invest client money abroad, and that in January 2018 it was permitted to carry out proprietary trading in overseas markets. In the regulator’s 2021 classification of 103 securities companies, Chinese Wikipedia says, Huatai was rated AA, the same grade as in 2020.

Shanghai, Hong Kong, then London.

Huatai’s shares trade in three cities. On 26 February 2010 it listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange under the code 601688, and Chinese Wikipedia notes that it became a constituent of the SSE 50 index. On 1 June 2015 its H shares began trading on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the code 6886. On 17 June 2019, English Wikipedia says, its global depositary receipts were listed on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker HTSC. Chinese Wikipedia says the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority approved the GDRs in June 2019 and that the issue was set to be the first under the Shanghai–London Stock Connect scheme. A company release of 28 August 2026 still lists all three codes: 601688.SH, 6886.HK and HTSC.L.

The shareholder register is led by Jiangsu state-owned groups. As of 30 June 2026, Chinese Wikipedia says, the largest holder was Jiangsu Guoxin Group, with about 15 per cent, followed by the Hong Kong clearing nominee and Jiangsu Communications Holding; Guoxin and three of the other Jiangsu holders are wholly owned by the province’s state-owned assets commission.

The biggest overseas step was American. In April 2016 Huatai bought AssetMark, a wealth-management technology platform for financial advisers based in Concord, California, from Aquiline Capital Partners and Genstar Capital, English Wikipedia says. Eight years later it sold. On 25 April 2024 AssetMark announced a definitive agreement to be acquired by the private equity firm GTCR, and GTCR’s co-chief executive congratulated Huatai, AssetMark’s majority shareholder since 2016, on the growth of the business. On 5 September 2024 AssetMark announced that the acquisition had closed, ending what it called a multiyear partnership with Huatai and leaving AssetMark an independent, privately owned company.

How the category presents itself.

China’s large insurers and securities firms are mostly listed groups with sizeable state shareholders, and many trade in more than one market, typically Shanghai or Shenzhen alongside Hong Kong, and in a few cases London. Their brands therefore have to work in at least two scripts. A full Chinese company name usually sits beside a shorter Chinese form and a set of English initials, as with PICC and 人保, or CPIC and 太保, and designers need all three versions to stay recognisable together.

The visual language this guide looks at includes wordmarks in reds, blues and golds, lettering with roots in Chinese calligraphy, and square, seal-like symbols that echo a traditional name chop. Websites and reports commonly pair those marks with photography of office towers and city skylines, and with images of the people and places the companies serve.

The products shape the pages. Insurers organise their sites around life, property, health and pension cover, policy and claims services and branch finders, while securities firms present brokerage, investment banking, asset management and the wealth apps through which retail investors trade. Group sites often link out to separate websites for each subsidiary, each carrying the parent’s initials.

Much of the most carefully designed material is financial reporting. Annual and interim reports, results presentations and ESG or sustainability reports are published in simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and English for investors on several exchanges, and they set the tone that the rest of a brand often follows. This guide sets out what can be checked about each company — when it was founded, who owns it and where it is listed — and marks clearly what rests on the company’s own word.

A trading app at the centre of the brand.

Huatai’s own descriptions lead with technology. Its Chinese website describes the firm as a leading technology-driven securities group listed in Shanghai, Hong Kong and London, offering wealth management, institutional services, investment management and international business. In June 2020, English Wikipedia says, it launched Zhangle Global, a mobile app for trading United States shares aimed at Chinese people living overseas. In its August 2026 release the company says its next-generation “AI ZhangLe” app, launched in October 2025, replaces command-style menus with natural-language conversation, and it describes an “ALL IN AI” strategy and a “One Huatai” platform that brings its wealth and institutional services together.

The group works through a family of Huatai-named companies. The release names Huatai Zijin Investment for private equity, Huatai Asset Management and Huatai Financial Holdings (Hong Kong), which sponsors listings in Hong Kong; Chinese Wikipedia adds Huatai United Securities, the futures arm Huatai Great Wall Futures and the fund manager Huatai-PineBridge. In Hong Kong, Chinese Wikipedia says, the international arm does business under the short name “HTSC,” the same letters as its London ticker.

For a design guide, Huatai Securities shows a broker that presents itself through technology, a short ticker-style name and a family of Huatai-prefixed subsidiaries. Compare CITIC Securities, another listed Chinese broker, and CICC, the Beijing investment bank. For this guide we use an indigo, a jade green and a warm paper with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Huatai Securities’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.