About Lianhe Ratings Global

Lianhe Ratings Global

Lianhe Ratings Global Limited (Lianhe Global; Chinese: 联合评级国际有限公司) is an international credit rating agency based in Hong Kong. Incorporated on 26 September 2017 and licensed by Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in July 2018 to provide credit rating services, it is the international rating arm of China's Lianhe group — one of the country's largest domestic credit rating organisations, founded in 2000. Lianhe Global rates Chinese and international issuers for the offshore capital markets, above all Chinese companies, banks and local government-linked investment companies issuing US dollar and offshore renminbi bonds. It describes its proposition as combining international rating practice with local insight into China's government structure and business environment. Its official website is lhratingsglobal.com.

The agency's emergence is part of a wider story: as Chinese issuers became some of the largest borrowers in Asia's offshore bond markets, Hong Kong regulators licensed a new generation of Chinese-owned agencies to rate them alongside the established global firms. Lianhe Global was among the most successful of them, publishing its first US dollar bond rating in January 2019 and, by its own account, becoming the largest Chinese international rating agency, with more than 100 public issuer and issuance ratings within its first years. This profile covers its founding and licensing, its place in the Lianhe group, what it rates, how its criteria work, and the recognition it has received.

Founding and licensing in Hong Kong

Lianhe Global was incorporated in Hong Kong on 26 September 2017. Sources differ slightly in how they name its immediate parent — some describe it as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lianhe Credit Information Service Co., Ltd., the Lianhe Group holding company, and others as a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Lianhe Credit Rating Co., Ltd. (Lianhe Ratings) — but all agree on the substance: it is wholly owned within the Lianhe group and serves as the group's international credit rating arm, distinct from the group's mainland agencies that operate in China's interbank and exchange bond markets.

Licensing followed quickly. In July 2018 the Securities and Futures Commission granted Lianhe Global a Type 10 licence, the Hong Kong licence class for providing credit rating services. It is also accredited as an Approved Credit Rating Agency by the Hong Kong Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority (MPFA), which allows its ratings to be used in the context of Hong Kong's mandatory provident fund system. InvestHK, the Hong Kong government department that promotes inward investment, features the company among its client cases, noting its 2017 founding, its Type 10 licence and its MPFA accreditation. With licence in hand, the agency moved to market: it published its first US dollar bond rating in January 2019, rating 4.11 billion US dollars of cross-border bonds in its early phase and describing itself at that point as the fourth-largest international rating agency in the Chinese offshore bond market.

Place in the Lianhe group

To understand Lianhe Global, it helps to understand the group behind it. The Lianhe Group also owns China Lianhe Credit Rating Co., Ltd. (Lianhe Ratings), which focuses on China's interbank market, and United Credit Ratings Co., Ltd. (United Ratings), which focuses on the exchange market. Together the two mainland agencies are referred to as Lianhe Capital Markets. The group dates its founding to 2000, and by December 2018 Lianhe Capital Markets had approximately 350 analysts covering a portfolio of about 5,000 issuers, ranging from corporates and local government financing vehicles to banks and structured finance products in China. A 2020 business review by Lianhe Global repeated those figures and described Lianhe Capital Markets as one of the two largest credit rating agencies in China.

The mainland parent's standing is documented independently. GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, announced on 29 January 2018 that an affiliate of GIC had entered as an investor in China Lianhe Credit Rating, saying the investment would facilitate Lianhe Ratings' long-term development and internationalisation; InvestHK notes that Lianhe Ratings' top shareholders include the Tianjin municipal government and GIC. FinanceAsia reported in 2025 that Lianhe Ratings was among the first credit rating agencies recognised by the People's Bank of China and the China Securities Regulatory Commission, is authorised for the interbank and exchange markets, has served over 3,000 issuers, has held the second-largest market share in China for several years, has led the financial bonds sector for five consecutive years, and has kept a market share above 50 percent in local government bonds. It also reported that by the end of 2024 Lianhe Ratings had disclosed sovereign rating results for 77 countries and regions and provided ratings for 103 Panda bonds with a total offering size of nearly 150 billion renminbi, holding a 45.1 percent share of the Panda bond market that year, first among Chinese rating agencies. Lianhe Global is the offshore extension of that domestic franchise: the group already covered the issuers at home; the Hong Kong company was created to rate their borrowing abroad.

What Lianhe Global rates

Lianhe Global's own standard description states that it provides credit ratings to corporations, banks, non-bank financial institutions, local investment and development companies and other asset classes around the globe, and also provides credit risk research and other services related to credit ratings. In practice, its public rating actions concentrate on Chinese offshore issuers. A signature category is the China local investment and development company (LIDC) — the local government-linked platforms, known in earlier terminology as local government financing vehicles, that build urban infrastructure and carry much of China's local state-owned investment activity. Its rating rationales for such issuers turn on the likelihood of government support: for example, its affirmation of an 'A+' global-scale long-term issuer and issuance rating for Zhuhai Huafa Group in May 2026 rested on a high possibility that the Guangdong provincial and Zhuhai municipal governments would provide strong support if needed, reflecting their ownership of the group, its strategic importance as a core LIDC for urban construction and operation in Zhuhai, and strong government linkage through management supervision, strategic alignment and ongoing operational and financial support.

The agency's coverage has also extended into fund ratings. On 17 July 2025 it assigned an 'Af' Fund Credit Quality Rating to the Haitong Asian Total Return Bond Fund, a US dollar-denominated fund established in May 2016, domiciled in Hong Kong and managed by Haitong International Asset Management (Hong Kong) Limited, applying its Bond Fund Credit Quality Rating Criteria published on 9 April 2025. The 'f' suffix distinguishes fund credit quality ratings from long-term issuer credit ratings, and the agency's fund scale uses seven categories — AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB, B and C — with the suffix added. Its rating releases consistently note that a rating is an opinion on creditworthiness, not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security, and that the ratings it announces are typically solicited at the request of the rated entity or a related third party.

Rating criteria and methodology

Lianhe Global publishes its rating criteria on its website, and each rating action names the principal methodologies applied. Its methodology library covers general corporate criteria; Chinese property developers; China local investment and development companies; banks; non-bank financial institutions; investment holdings and conglomerates; money market funds; hybrid instruments, covering equity credit and notching; structured finance; bond fund credit quality; insurance; real-world asset tokenisation risk assessment; and sovereign ratings. The breadth of that list shows an agency that began with Chinese offshore corporates and LIDCs and has progressively added banks, funds, structured products and newer asset classes such as tokenised real-world assets.

The published criteria set out scope and approach in conventional rating-agency form. The general corporate criteria apply to corporate entities outside banking, non-bank finance, regulated monopolies such as utilities, not-for-profit entities and providers of public and government services. The Chinese property developer criteria are built in three segments — China's operating environment, industry analysis, and corporate analysis combining qualitative business assessment with quantitative financial analysis. The LIDC criteria apply to Chinese entities directly or indirectly owned, usually with control, by governments or government departments that fulfil the LIDC definition, and are intended to cover most China LIDCs. The structured finance criteria cover transactions backed by assets including consumer loan receivables, residential and commercial mortgage loans, corporate loans, collateralised loan and debt obligations and equipment leases. The money market fund criteria apply to funds and similar vehicles investing mainly in short-term fixed income instruments whose primary objectives are preserving principal and providing liquidity. Recent rating actions show the criteria being updated on a rolling basis: the China LIDC criteria applied in 2026 actions were published on 31 July 2025, the hybrid instruments criteria on 12 February 2025 and the tokenisation criteria on 25 August 2025.

Growth and market position

The agency's growth can be tracked through its own periodic disclosures. Starting from its first US dollar bond rating in January 2019 and 4.11 billion US dollars of rated cross-border bonds in its early phase, it expanded quickly on the back of Chinese offshore issuance. Earlier company descriptions described it as the largest Chinese international rating agency, with over 100 issuer and issuance ratings and cumulative rated issuance exceeding 24 billion US dollars. By the end of August 2024, marking its seventh anniversary, Lianhe Global reported that it had awarded a total of 220 issuer ratings and 140 Chinese offshore issuance ratings with a total value of more than 32 billion US dollars, and described itself as the only Chinese international rating agency with more than 100 publicly appointed issuer and issuance ratings.

The company attributes that position to a dual investor base. In its 2024 award announcement it said its focus over its first seven years had covered not only the international investors served by the three major international rating agencies, but also the Chinese investors the Lianhe Group had served over the preceding 20 years, and that it had established extensive relationships with China's offshore bond investors, investment banks and issuers. It presents itself as a bridge between international markets and China, explaining to investors the impact of government policies on the economic and financial conditions of specific industries and regions. Its stated operating principles are objectivity, neutrality and impartiality, professionalism, honesty and rigour, with a strict internal control and risk management system and a rating process aligned to international standards.

Awards and recognition

Lianhe Global's market position brought early industry recognition. In 2019 it was named Best Chinese Offshore Ratings Agency in FinanceAsia's China Awards. FinanceAsia noted that the award was added that year to recognise the growth of Chinese rating agencies in Hong Kong offering ratings and research for Chinese offshore bond issuance, and that its criteria included market share and the timeliness, integrity, transparency and accuracy of ratings and research. FinanceAsia, founded in 1996 to cover corporate finance across Asia Pacific, is widely followed by the region's finance community, making the award a significant early credential for a two-year-old agency.

Five years later, in September 2024, Lianhe Global was named Best Chinese International Credit Rating Agency 2024 at the International Business Magazine Awards. In the announcement, its chief executive, Terry Gao, framed the award in terms of providing independent, objective and fair credit rating services to issuers and investors by leveraging international expertise and local insight into China's government structure and business environment. The company said it provides investors with comprehensive services including public rating reports, investor events and other outreach alongside its ratings. Its parent group has likewise collected recognition at home — FinanceAsia's 2025 profile of Lianhe Ratings described an agency holding leading positions in financial bonds and local government bonds and first place in the Panda bond market — reinforcing the group-wide brand on which the Hong Kong agency trades.

How its rating actions work

A typical Lianhe Global rating action follows the standard grammar of the industry, adapted to Chinese state-linked issuers. The release assigns or affirms a global-scale long-term issuer credit rating and, where relevant, issuance ratings for specific bonds, with an outlook such as Stable. It then sets out key rating drivers — for LIDCs, the strength of government ownership, the issuer's strategic importance to its locality, the closeness of government linkage and the government's willingness to support the issuer to safeguard its reputation and local financing activities — followed by the factors that could trigger an upgrade or downgrade, such as strengthened or weakened government support, changes in the government's ownership stake, or a change in the agency's internal credit assessment of the supporting government itself. Any action on the issuer rating results in a similar action on its bonds. Releases identify the primary and secondary analysts and the committee chairperson, state whether the rating was solicited, and specify the criteria applied, with the methodologies available on the agency's website.

That template is visible across its recent work, from the Zhuhai Huafa affirmations to an April 2026 assignment of an 'A+' issuance rating to guaranteed renminbi bonds to be issued by a Zhuhai Huafa subsidiary, Huafa Investment Holding 2022 I Company Limited, where the bonds were rated at the same level as the guarantor's issuer rating because they are unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteed by it, with proceeds intended to refinance existing offshore indebtedness. The consistency of format — and the publication of ratings, criteria and research on lhratingsglobal.com — is part of how a younger agency establishes the transparency on which the 2019 FinanceAsia award criteria were based.

Significance in the offshore rating market

Lianhe Ratings Global occupies a specific niche in Asian capital markets. For decades, Chinese issuers raising money offshore were rated almost exclusively by the large international agencies, whose analysts sit outside China and whose views on local government support for Chinese issuers have sometimes diverged sharply from domestic assessments. A Hong Kong-licensed agency owned by one of China's two largest domestic rating groups offers issuers and investors an alternative opinion grounded in the group's coverage of some 5,000 mainland issuers and its reading of Chinese government structures — while operating under Hong Kong's SFC licensing regime and the disclosure conventions of the international market.

Whether measured by its own milestones — incorporation in 2017, licensing in 2018, first rating in 2019, more than 32 billion US dollars of rated offshore issuance by August 2024 — or by external recognition from FinanceAsia and International Business Magazine, Lianhe Global has become the most established of the Chinese international rating agencies. Its rating actions, criteria library and credit research, all published through lhratingsglobal.com, make it a reference point for anyone following Chinese offshore bonds, local investment and development companies and the growing fund-rating segment in Hong Kong.