According to a research report, the investment value of JF SMARTINVEST (ASX: 09636) stems from three key pillars. First, as a leading licensed investment advisor, it stands to benefit significantly from the robust growth in the online investment education market. Second, empowered by its proprietary "Jiuzhang" large language model, the company has established a tiered product matrix anchored by high-end VIP services and supplemented by offerings like "Star Services" and the "AI Stock Machine." Third, its forward-looking expansion into overseas operations and the digital asset sector opens up substantial long-term growth potential. The convergence of these three drivers is propelling the company into a new phase of expansion.
Company Overview
JF SMARTINVEST is recognized as the first listed entity in Hong Kong focused on securities investment education. Since its strategic pivot in 2018, it has rapidly emerged as a leader in providing online investment solutions. The company's predecessor was established in 1996 and secured one of the first batches of securities investment advisory licenses in 1998, holding a rare and compliant qualification. In 2017, through a series of strategic restructurings and business acquisitions, the core team successfully integrated this licensed entity into the group, fully launching its licensed online securities advisory operations. The company achieved a successful listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2023 and officially rebranded from "Jiufang Wealth" to "JF SMARTINVEST" in 2024, underscoring its commitment to a comprehensive digital and intelligent transformation. The company maintains a stable ownership structure, with the founder as the core controlling shareholder ensuring strategic continuity. The management team, with deep experience in finance and securities advisory, provides a solid managerial foundation for navigating market cycles.
Operational Analysis
The company has developed a closed-loop system for managing customer traffic and built a comprehensive, intelligent, tiered product matrix.
1) Traffic Acquisition: Capitalizing on the short-video trend, the company has constructed a robust "trinity" traffic moat. It has established a complete commercial cycle of "public domain traffic acquisition, private domain user retention, and tiered monetization." Through its financial content MCN (Multi-Channel Network) matrix on platforms like Douyin and WeChat Channels, it achieves precise customer acquisition. By the end of 2025, the number of MCN accounts across all platforms grew to 1,153 (up 119.2% year-on-year), with a follower base reaching 66.62 million (up 33.1% year-on-year). Leveraging AI technologies like the "Jiuzhang" model and its live-streaming matrix, the company enhances conversion efficiency, enabling deep user value extraction. In 2025, despite intensified competition in public traffic channels, the return on investment for traffic acquisition costs remained strong at 3.88x, validating the resilience and competitive commercial barrier of its "precise acquisition + efficient conversion" model during scaled expansion.
2) Product Portfolio: Focusing on a full spectrum of client needs, the company has built a tiered, intelligent product matrix catering to large, medium, and small investment amounts.
① Mature Business: High-value VIP products serve as the "profit anchor." In 2024, the company consolidated and upgraded its existing high-value VIP products for mass affluent investors into two main series: "Stock Market Navigator" and "Super Investor," priced at 29,800 yuan for 6 months and 69,800 yuan for 3 months, respectively. As the company's foundational business, this segment, with its in-depth advisory services and high client stickiness, drove the contract liabilities balance to a record high of 1.53 billion yuan by the end of 2025.
② Growth Businesses: Mid-to-low-value products and intelligent hardware fill market gaps. The company is actively reshaping its revenue structure by introducing new business lines, aiming for its growth businesses and overseas operations to collectively contribute over 50% of revenue within the next three years. In 2024, it launched the "Jiuyao Gu" entry-level product, priced from tens to thousands of yuan, serving as a traffic funnel to efficiently capture public traffic from its MCN matrix with its low threshold and tool-based features. The same year saw the launch of the industry's first all-in-one AI stock learning device, "EasyStock Path - JF SMARTINVEST Stock Learning Machine" (now renamed "AI Stock Machine"), with a post-subsidy price of approximately 3,000-5,000 yuan per unit. In 2025, the company focused on introducing the "Decision Master" series, priced at 12,988 yuan per year, filling the gap in its own mid-tier product offerings in the ten-thousand-yuan price range. This successfully established a complete customer conversion path from low-value, mid-tier to high-value VIP products. Also in 2025, the company launched "Star Services." Through deep collaboration with securities brokers, this service creates an ecosystem integrating investment research information with trade execution, aiming to enhance client trading experience and retention rates.
Core Investment Thesis
The synergy between internal drivers and the external environment is fueling a dual-engine growth strategy centered on pro-cyclical performance and internationalization.
1) Pro-Cyclical Beta Surge: Strong Earnings Recovery Visibility. Benefiting from the implementation of a comprehensive policy package for capital markets since September 2024, market trading activity has significantly rebounded. In Q1 2026, the average daily trading volume for A-shares surged to 2.58 trillion yuan, and new account openings increased by 61% year-on-year. This trend recovery in trading activity and expansion of the investor base constitute a strong pro-cyclical beta for the company's core business growth. As a highly elastic "sentiment amplifier" within the broader wealth management sector, the company's business growth demonstrates robust momentum.
2) Overseas Expansion and Digital Asset Foresight: Unlocking New Growth Frontiers. The company has established an international business platform through the acquisitions of Founder Securities and Founder Capital. In May 2026, its Founder entities completed a license upgrade, adding virtual asset business qualifications to their traditional licensed operations. This makes it one of the very few fintech brokerages in the market with a full-chain license covering "trade execution + investment advisory + asset management" for virtual assets, enabling unified account management for traditional Hong Kong/U.S. stocks and virtual assets. Furthermore, the company deepened its layout in the digital asset ecosystem through strategic investments in HashKey and EX.IO. Through this overseas "traditional finance + digital technology" full-license ecosystem deployment, the company has broken the boundaries of its domestic single-business model, formally initiating a second growth engine and accelerating its strategic transition into an international comprehensive fintech group.