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It collects tolls from drivers on expressways it operates in China and also runs a securities brokerage business.
Zhejiang Expressway is a toll road company first. It builds, owns, and operates highways — mostly in Zhejiang province, one of China's wealthiest coastal regions — and earns money the simplest way imaginable: drivers pay a toll every time they use one of its roads. It owns large stretches of major highways around Hangzhou and along the coast, plus stakes in other road projects. Tolls are a bit like a subscription for cars and trucks: steady, predictable, and billed by the kilometer.
The second business is more surprising. Through its controlled subsidiary Zheshang Securities, the company runs a securities brokerage — it helps Chinese investors buy and sell stocks and bonds, manages funds, and earns fees and commissions for that work. So the same company that profits from trucks rumbling down the highway also profits when people trade shares. Both are essentially volume businesses: more traffic and more trading mean more money. Toll roads are a wonderful business while the concession lasts. Traffic grows with the economy, and the company has already sunk the construction cost, so each extra car is nearly pure profit. The catch is that road concessions expire — the government grants the right to collect tolls for a set number of years, and then the road reverts to the state. So the company must keep investing in new roads, or upgrading existing ones, to replace revenue that will eventually run out. That is why it regularly builds and buys new highway projects.
Like most Chinese toll road operators, Zhejiang Expressway is a steady dividend payer, returning a large share of its cash to shareholders each year. That reliable cash flow — from toll booths and trading commissions alike — is the core of the investment case. The main risks are straightforward: a slowdown in traffic or trading, rising interest costs on the debt used to build roads, and the simple fact that highways, however busy, do not last forever as a source of toll income.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026