Southwest Securities, one of China's leading brokerages, on Saturday reported 2015 net profits of 3.56 billion yuan (546.9 million U.S. dollars), up 165.5 percent year on year.
Earnings per share stood at 0.63 yuan, compared with 0.49 yuan a year earlier, the brokerage said in a statement filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The Chongqing-based company attributed the profit surge to higher commission fees and rising income from asset management business, which rocketed 545.6 percent from one year earlier to 713 million yuan.
Business income soared 131.2 percent year on year to 8.5 billion yuan, it said.
In February alone, the company reaped net profits of 45.9 million yuan, up 253.7 percent from January, it said.
China's securities industry posted strong profit rises in 2015, when the stock market experienced a dramatic roller-coaster ride, with the key Shanghai index more than doubling between late 2014 and June 2015, before plummeting more than 40 percent since then.
The unaudited net profits of 125 brokerage firms totaled 244.8 billion yuan in 2015, up 153.5 percent year on year, according to data from the Securities Association of China.
