UBS Securities buys futures brokerage in China

Beijing, 17 February 2014 — UBS Securities Co. Limited (UBS Securities) announces that it is acquiring a majority shareholding in Shanghai Pumin Futures Brokerage Co., Ltd. (Pumin Futures), which has a registered capital of RMB 30 million. After a capital injection of RMB 90 million, UBS Securities will hold 95.42% of Pumin Futures. The application for the equity transfer and capital increase has been approved by the regulator.

David LI, Chairman of UBS Securities, said, “UBS Securities is the first foreign invested securities firm in China with licenses to conduct a full range of securities businesses. We are excited to expand into the futures brokerage market which has a strong growth potential. As pointed out at the 3rd plenum of the Party Congress, the Chinese government encourages financial innovation and aims to build a multi-layered financial market with more products. We expect new futures products to be introduced to the market soon.”

Yang XIA, Head of Equities of UBS Securities, said,”Our China Equities business is committed to offering the most comprehensive range of services in the secondary market. As a critical step to realizing this goal, we hope to make available a financial futures brokerage service to our clients in the future, and this complements our current offerings, including domestic equity advisory, QFII and RQFII brokerage, electronic trading strategy & execution and OTC derivative.”

The Hushen 300 Index, China’s first financial futures product launched in April 2010, registered a trading volume for the year of over RMB41 trillion, representing 26.5% of the volume of all futures products. The financial futures market has since then grown exponentially. In 2013, the trading volume including the newly introduced treasury futures, reached RMB141 trillion, or 52.72% of the total futures products trading volume.