On July 5, CITIC Press Group Corporation (“CITIC Press”) successfully debuted on the A-share market and was officially listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The company’s shares are referred to as “CITIC Press” (stock code: “300788”), with an IPO of 47.5379 million shares at a price of RMB 14.85 per share.

At 9: 25 am, Chang Zhenming, chairman of CITIC Group, Li Dongdong, chairman of China Media Culture Promotion Association, Wu Shulin, executive vice-chairman of The Publishers Association of China, Zhu Weifeng, inspector and deputy director of the Central Cultural Structural Reform and Development Work Small Group Office of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, Wang Bin, chairman of CITIC Press Group, and Li Geping, CEO of China Securities jointly rang the bell of IPO. 

As a subsidiary of CITIC Group, CITIC Press has been committed to vertically integrating culture, life, education and entertainment industries with high-quality content and creative resources since its establishment, to create a superior intellectual property service ecosystem with “content+” as the core. CITIC Press is the leading brand in the economic and management book category and has been in the top place for a long time. With its competitive edge in branding, creativity, content and technology, it has developed into a full-fledged and upscale cultural service provider with strong influence in China and the world.

Chang Zhenming, chairman of CITIC Group, said in his speech, “CITIC Press has a finger on the pulse of our times, it will provide excellent works and mind nourishment for the public, and meet the growing cultural and intellectual needs of readers. At the same time, CITIC Press also exports lots of copyright to overseas countries every year, making Chinese voices heard in the world by ‘Going Global’ strategy, hence the promoting of cultural self-confidence.”

Chang Zhenming, chairman of CITIC Group

Wu Shulin, executive vice-chairman of the Publishers Association of China, spoke highly of CITIC Press, “CITIC Press has grown from a small-scale publishing house to a comprehensive press media group, covering traditional publishing, knowledge offering and new retail after 30 years of growing. It has great market influence and brand appeal and has laid a solid foundation for its successful IPO.”

Wu Shulin, executive vice-chairman of The Publishers Association of China

Greeting the Our Times With Books

Benefited from China’s economic growth, CITIC Press has delivered vast quantities of high-quality knowledge assets to the public, serving more than 11,000 authors around the world and selling about 280 million books in total. It has recorded a high growth in China’s non-fiction book market, provided important mind nourishment and intellectual reservoir for this fast-developing country, and has become one of China’s most internationally recognized publishing houses.

The books published by CITIC Press became our shared memories over the years and introduced the public buzzwords as “Cheese”, “Black Swan”, “The Long Tail”, “Build to Last”, “Freak Economics”, “Brief History of Humankind” and “The Gray Rhino”.

CITIC Press developed book series of the “China Road”, “One Belt One Road”, the “Investing in China” and other thematic books and key projects. The published books have been selected for many times into the national “13th Five-Year Plan” key books, audio-visual and e-book projects and have been awarded for more than 400 kinds of prizes, including Wenjin Award, National Book Award and China Good Book Award.

In 2018, CITIC Press took up 2.47% of the total book retail market, ranked second in all individual publishing houses, with financial and economic category leading the market by a large margin.

Since 2017, CITIC Press has yearly exported nearly 400 kinds of books. China’s economic management books have topped the foreign bestseller classification list.

Exploring Knowledge Service Model in New Era

The change in the way that knowledge is transmitted added new value to people and content.

The offline space “CITIC Bookstore”, which CITIC Press started 10 years ago, is dedicated to creating a new retail channel that offers full-spectrum services and is  content-driven. By 2019, CITIC Press’ airport bookstores would have spread all over China’s major airports and airports in tourist cities, covering 350 million passengers a year. City stores and office stores will become new commercial landmarks in the city, integrating with readers’ work and life tracks, providing them with all-covering knowledge and daily services, and displaying new knowledges and delicate lifestyles.

The dramas adapted from the books published by CITIC Press are staged nationwide and the exhibition hall of the internationally-renowned Andersen Illustration Exhibition is crowded with countless small families, which showcased the value of content has gone beyond the physical book itself.

In the field of digital publishing, CITIC Press launched CITIC Academy, which uses APP as the primary carrier, combined new media and small programs, and used audio and video as the main form to forge a matrix of digital publishing and knowledge service products.

In terms of cultural value-added services, CITIC Press also offers children’s content，education & training. It has launched subsidiaries such as CITIC ThinkBao and CITIC Kaplan, which extend to upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.

From traditional book publishing to new retail and e-content services, CITIC Press has been striving to push forward knowledge creation and knowledge implementation through new business models by breaching publishing boundaries.

New Chapter, New Journey

The listing on A shares marks a new milestone for CITIC Press.

Wang Bin, chairman of CITIC Press, said in his speech, “Listing opens a new development course for CITIC Press. In the future, CITIC Press will continue to promote content innovation, extend publishing boundaries, improve industrial layout, enhance international influence and contribute to the sound development and prosperity of China’s culture industry. We will spare no efforts and will deliver better performance to create value for shareholders, generate income for investors, and to meet the growing demand of the public for a better life.”

Wang Bin, chairman of CITIC Press

CITIC Press will be a new integrator of the content industry and explorer of the new business model with a more open mind and a more flexible mechanism. Also, it will continue to strengthen its main business to better serve readers and the public, to lay out physical bookstores to nourish the momentum of intellectual power, to deepen digital content and knowledge services to embrace 5G era, and to maximize the value of content.