CITIC Securities Co, China's second-biggest brokerage by market value, said yesterday first-half profit growth slowed to 13.3 percent as the nation's stock market slumped about 48 percent.

CITIC's year-earlier net rose fivefold.

Net income rose to 4.8 billion yuan (US$704 million) in the six months ending June 30 from a year earlier, according to a statement from the Beijing-based securities company yesterday, citing unaudited figures in a mandatory profit warning. CITIC earned 4.2 billion yuan in the first half last year. The company's profit doubled in the first quarter this year, Bloomberg News reported.

The stock market decline is cutting earnings from commissions and proprietary trading after surging profits last year when the nation's stocks almost tripled in value. Investors traded shares in about 10 million stock accounts, or 8.5 percent of the nation's total, in the last week of the first half, compared with 19 percent in the first week.

CITIC's earnings per share declined 49 percent to 0.72 yuan, compared with 1.41 yuan a year earlier, after the company's total outstanding shares were diluted to about 6.6 billion as of the end of June from about 3 billion a year earlier.

(Shanghai Daily July 21, 2008)