"Support Excellence and Science," Excel and Strengthen! A-Share Refinancing Presents Three Major New Trends

To continuously monitor changes in the capital market financing ecosystem, Securities Times Data Treasure launches a series of reports called “New Perspectives on Financing.” This article is the first in the series, providing a comprehensive overview of the refinancing market changes, combining policy guidance with market practices, analyzing structural adjustments in fund flows and evolving trends.

The 2026 Government Work Report proposed to deepen comprehensive reforms of capital market investment and financing, further improve the mechanism for long-term funds to enter the market, enhance investor protection systems, expand exit channels for private equity and venture capital funds, and increase the proportion of direct and equity financing.

At the Fourth Session of the 14th National People’s Congress, Wu Qing, Chair of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, stated that further optimization of refinancing review and registration mechanisms at the institutional rule level is needed to improve the inclusiveness and adaptability of the system, emphasizing the “supporting excellence and science” orientation.

Compared to indirect financing, direct financing is an important way for enterprises to optimize capital structure, achieve external expansion, and upgrade industries. “Actively developing equity, bonds, and other direct financing, increasing the proportion of direct financing, and improving the multi-level capital market system” has become a key direction for reform.

Continuous Optimization of Financing Structure

Refinancing, as a vital component of direct financing, is an important tool and key support for listed companies to consolidate core businesses, optimize resource allocation, and enhance core competitiveness.

On February 9 this year, the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges and the Beijing Stock Exchange launched a package of measures to optimize refinancing, supporting high-quality listed companies to improve and strengthen, and guiding market resources to accelerate toward new productive forces. This follows the regulatory improvements made in August 2023, marking a structural optimization and targeted easing of refinancing policies. The policies clearly emphasize “supporting the excellent and limiting the inferior, supporting the excellent and science,” mainly ensuring reasonable financing needs of high-quality listed companies and technological innovation enterprises, signaling a shift from total volume control to structural optimization and functional enhancement.

Tian Lihui, Dean of the Institute of Financial Development at Nankai University, told Securities Times Data Treasure that easing refinancing aims to serve national strategies and reshape the capital market ecosystem. Through “supporting the excellent and science,” it precisely addresses financing difficulties for tech startups, shortens the financing gap for unprofitable companies, removes restrictions on “break-even” firms, and reconstructs standards for mainboard tech innovation. It directly tackles issues like mismatched capital and innovation cycles and the disconnection between traditional industries and technology. Embedding the capital market deeply into the national innovation system guides capital toward “bottleneck” areas, promotes the development of new productive forces, and achieves strategic synergy between finance and the real economy.

Data trends show that refinancing scale has significantly increased since 2025. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, the A-share refinancing market (including additional issuance, rights issues, preferred shares, and convertible bonds) showed a “V” shape. In 2024, the total refinancing amount of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares dropped to a decade low.

As policies shifted from total volume control to structural optimization, market activity in refinancing rebounded sharply in 2025, with total refinancing reaching 1.13 trillion yuan, a new high since 2022. Compared to social financing data, the proportion of A-share refinancing in social financing was 3.19% in 2025, also a new high since 2022.

As of March 9, 2025, the total A-share refinancing amount exceeded 160 billion yuan, more than 20% higher than in the first quarter of 2025.

Emerging Three Major Trends

Since 2025, the refinancing market has shown positive changes in industry orientation, pricing mechanisms, and fundraising targets, highlighting the trend of the capital market shifting from virtual to real and serving new productive forces.

First, industry-oriented “supporting excellence and science,” resources accelerating toward new productive forces.

By sector, in 2025, the refinancing amount on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) exceeded 52 billion yuan, an increase of about 60% from the previous year; the Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR Market) saw nearly 67.4 billion yuan in refinancing, nearly six times the previous year. This year, the STAR Market has already seen over 7.4 billion yuan in refinancing, continuing its growth trend.

From the refinancing structure, in 2025, the main board accounted for over 87% of total refinancing, while the “dual innovation” (STAR and GEM) sectors accounted for 12.59%. Excluding the large refinancing of four major state-owned banks totaling 520 billion yuan, the “dual innovation” sectors’ share of refinancing approached 28%, the highest in the past decade, with the STAR Market’s share also reaching a historic high of over 15%.

By industry, excluding banking and non-bank financial industries, sectors such as electronics, defense and military, electrical equipment, and computers saw increased refinancing proportions compared to last year. Electronics accounted for over 20%, defense and military over 10%, both reaching five-year highs, highlighting support for core technology and high-end manufacturing.

Second, fairer pricing mechanisms, balancing financing efficiency and investor interests.

According to regulations, the issuance price of private placements should not be lower than 80% of the average trading price of the company’s stock in the 20 trading days prior to pricing.

Overall, in 2025, the average issuance price of private placements relative to the benchmark was close to 86%, a new high since 2021; since 2026, it has risen to nearly 88%.

In terms of company proportions, over 45% of private placements in 2025 had issuance prices exceeding 85% of the benchmark, significantly higher than in 2023 and 2024.

This aligns with the policy of “improving lock-in mechanisms for private placements, promoting prices closer to market levels, and better balancing interests between listed companies and investors.” Industry insiders believe that narrowing issuance discounts indicates investors’ increased willingness to subscribe at higher prices, reflecting greater confidence in the company’s fundamentals, project prospects, and future growth.

Third, fundraising focus on core businesses, guiding funds to serve the real economy and innovation.

According to Wind data, based on the purpose of private placements, in 2025, the scale of refinancing aimed at “supplementing working capital” significantly declined, while the scale directed toward project financing and asset acquisitions increased sharply, accounting for over 55% and 30%, respectively, with asset acquisitions reaching a new high since 2021.

Looking at the overall fundraising (including private placements, rights issues, and convertible bonds), the trend over the past five years shows concentrated investment in technological innovation and core business expansion. In 2025, the proportion of refinancing allocated to “R&D” (including information technology investment) rose to 6.09%, a new high since 2021. Since 2026, this proportion has further increased to around 11%.

Refinancing used for equity acquisitions accounted for over 37% in 2025, nearly tripling the previous year’s level. During the “14th Five-Year Plan,” the proportion of refinancing for project construction and capacity expansion has consistently remained above 30%, approaching 40% in 2025.

For example, in 2025, Lexin Technology raised nearly 1.8 billion yuan through private placement, with 5.62% used for working capital, about 34% for R&D center construction, and over 60% for projects like Wi-Fi 7 router chips development and industrialization.

Regarding the optimization of fundraising purposes, Tian Lihui told reporters that this is mainly driven by three institutional factors: first, rules requiring funds to be directed toward R&D; second, review efficiency linked to the innovation attributes; third, strict supervision of fund use.

He also noted that this shift brings dual benefits: for the real economy, increased R&D funding in semiconductors and high-end equipment accelerates technological breakthroughs and industry upgrades; for the capital market, it breaks the inertia of “financing arbitrage,” encourages companies to value R&D and growth potential, and optimizes resource allocation. Capital shifts from “blood transfusion” to “blood production,” strengthening the real economy and reshaping market valuation, injecting long-term momentum for high-quality development.

Clear “Supporting Excellence and Science” Orientation

The review and registration mechanism for refinancing continues to improve, with a clear “supporting excellence and science” focus.

Wu Qing pointed out that further emphasizing “supporting excellence and science” can significantly improve review efficiency for high-quality listed companies with good governance and market recognition. The current standards for “light assets and high R&D investment” on the STAR and GEM boards will be extended to the main board, implementing measures such as relaxing refinancing limits for R&D investment and shortening refinancing intervals to better support high-quality tech innovation companies.

Data shows that refinancing policies strongly emphasize inclusiveness and industry orientation toward new productive forces, notably increasing support for STAR Market, strategic emerging industries, and six major emerging pillar industries and future industries designated by the state, mainly reflected in four aspects:

1. Increased financing activity. In 2025, the total refinancing amount for companies related to new productive forces increased by 60% year-on-year, with new pillar and future industries exceeding 25% growth; the total refinancing for strategic emerging industries approached 88 billion yuan, up about 16 billion from the previous year. Excluding the four major state-owned banks, the share of refinancing for related companies approached 29%, a new high since 2021, with the share for strategic emerging industries surpassing 20% for the first time.

2. Decline in issuance costs. In 2025, the average issuance fee rate for private placements and convertible bonds for related companies dropped to the lowest in five years. The average fee rate for STAR Market and future industry companies was below 1.6%, over 1 percentage point lower than the previous year, reaching the lowest since 2022. Since 2026, the average fee rate for convertible bonds related to these companies further declined to around 1%.

3. Shorter issuance durations. The time from acceptance to issuance for related companies continued to shorten. In 2025, the average duration for private placements was about 221 days, nearly four months shorter than the previous year; for convertible bonds, the duration also decreased by over three months. The reduction was especially notable for STAR Market companies.

From the review process perspective, the number of simplified procedures for strategic emerging and STAR Market companies in 2025 exceeded that of 2024, further reflecting the “supporting science” orientation.

4. Improved performance inclusiveness. In 2025, among companies related to new productive forces conducting refinancing, the proportion of those with net losses in the current or previous year increased to over 57%, the highest in five years. For STAR Market companies conducting refinancing in 2024 and 2025, the proportion with net losses in the current or previous year exceeded 54%, fully demonstrating policy support for the performance of tech innovation enterprises.

Strong Attraction in Technology Sectors

In addition to ongoing refinancing projects, current projects under development (mainly private placements and convertible bonds) also clearly reflect the “supporting excellence and science” orientation, providing important expectations for the continuous development of new productive forces. They guide capital toward core technology sectors such as robotics, artificial intelligence, chips, and new energy, which are key focus areas for funding.

Among ongoing projects, the number of related listed companies and the total fundraising scale remain high.

Based on the first plan date (excluding companies that have halted), since 2026, related companies planning to raise nearly 46 billion yuan through private placements account for nearly half of all planned private placements; those planning to raise over 16 billion yuan via convertible bonds account for nearly 60% of all convertible bond plans.

Specifically, since the beginning of this year, more than 20 related companies have announced plans to raise at least 1 billion yuan, with total planned fundraising exceeding 50.6 billion yuan. These companies mainly involve semiconductors, energy storage, and embodied intelligence industries.

Companies like Sugon, Unisoc, and Gotion High-tech plan to raise no less than 5 billion yuan each, with Sugon using convertible bonds, and the other two via private placements. They represent the AI, semiconductor, and energy storage sectors.

Tongfu Microelectronics, Fulin Precision, and Jingzhida plan private placements of over 2.9 billion yuan each, mainly for project financing.

Disclaimer: All information from Data Treasure does not constitute investment advice. The stock market involves risks; invest cautiously.

Proofreader: Zhao Yan