Annual report blunder! China Everbright Bank's latest response

Source: Securities Times Net Author: Huang Yulin

On the evening of April 1, Light Bank’s H shares were announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, requiring revisions to the information published for the preliminary performance results (i.e., the annual results announcement).

Earlier, Light Bank’s annual report version “glitch” drew market attention: in the annual reports originally released by the HKEX and the SSE, several branches’ data such as “asset size” were clearly misformatted and mixed up. Subsequently, the SSE version was quickly corrected, but the data still had substantial discrepancies from the HKEX version, resulting in the same bank disclosing branch asset sizes that differed greatly between the two locations.

According to the latest announcement released by Light Bank on the HKEX, all data errors involving eight branches have now been fully corrected.

The data show that, as of the end of 2025, Light Bank’s asset sizes for its Shanghai branch, Shijiazhuang branch, Tianjin branch, Qingdao branch, Yantai branch, Ningbo branch, Shenzhen branch, and Chengdu branch were 72B yuan, 8B yuan, 8B yuan, 120.27B yuan, 101.33B yuan, 98.01B yuan, 72.6B yuan, and 81.89B yuan, respectively.

Previously, Light Bank’s H-share annual report labeled the above branches’ asset sizes as 395.4 billion yuan, 286.7B yuan, 96.14B yuan, 39.54B yuan, 274.74 billion yuan, 59.84B yuan, 518.78 billion yuan, and 27.47B yuan.

Light Bank stated that the correction content did not affect any other information contained in the annual results announcement.

On the left is a screenshot of Light Bank’s revised annual report released on the HKEX; on the right is a screenshot of the bank’s annual report on the SSE. The relevant data are marked.

The day before this annual report data “glitch” gained momentum, Light Bank had just held its 2025 annual results press conference.

The data show that in 2025, Light Bank achieved operating revenue of 126.31 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year decline of 6.72%; it achieved net profit of 39.14 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year decline of 6.61%. By the end of December 2025, Light Bank’s total assets exceeded 7 trillion yuan, up 2.96% from the end of the previous year to 338.49B yuan.

In terms of asset quality, as of the end of December 2025, Light Bank’s balance of non-performing loans was 51.88B yuan, up 1.49 billion yuan from the end of the previous year; the non-performing loan ratio was 1.27%, up 0.02 percentage points from the end of the previous year. The provision coverage ratio was 174.14%, down 6.45 percentage points from the end of the previous year.

Regarding the revenue decline, Light Bank management responded that there were mainly three reasons: first, the decline in net interest margin constrained the growth of interest income; second, other income declined on a temporary basis due to a fairly significant drop in bond market interest rates; third, the bank increased efforts to defuse risks in related businesses and to drive business transformation, resulting in periodic pressure on credit card interest and fee income.

Management said that 2026 will be a year to strengthen the foundation. The bank will adhere to misaligned development to build distinctive advantages—grow income, control costs, strengthen risk control, enhance support for related resources, and promote a stabilization and rebound in its profitability level.