Citic Securities breaks Fitch’s rating ceiling with first ‘A’ category for Chinese brokerage

China’s most profitable brokerage, and until recently its largest by assets, has become the first mainland securities firm to enter the A-category under Fitch Ratings’ framework, a milestone in China’s efforts to build globally competitive investment banks.
Fitch, one of the world’s three major ratings agencies, assigned an A-minus long-term issuer default rating with a “stable” outlook to both Citic Securities and its Hong Kong-based subsidiary Citic Securities International on Tuesday.
Fitch’s...