(Yicai) Aug. 22 -- Shares of Golden Dragon Development dropped after the Chinese investment firm unveiled a plan to sell a majority stake in the second securities brokerages in less than three months.

Golden Dragon [SHE: 000712] was trading down 8.5 percent at CNY10.40 (USD1.46) as of 1.10 p.m. in Shenzhen today.

Golden Dragon will sell a 20 percent stake in Dongguan Securities to Dongguan Financial Holdings and Dongguan Development Holdings for CNY2.3 billion (USD322.5 million), the Qingyuan-based seller announced yesterday, citing a transfer deal the three parties inked the previous day.

Dongguan Financial and Dongguan Development will become Dongguan Securities' largest and second-largest shareholders, with stakes of 32.9 percent and 27.1 percent, respectively. Golden Dragon's stake will halve to 20 percent, sliding to third-biggest shareholder. However, Dongguan Securities' actual controller will be the Dongguan State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

Dongguan Securities had total assets of CNY48.6 billion (USD6.8 billion) and total debts of CNY39.5 billion as of June 30. The firm reported CNY1 billion in revenue and CNY293 million (USD41.1 million) in net profit in the first half of the year.

Golden Dragon is selling the stake in Dongguan Securities to cut its debts, optimize its financial structure, hike its cash flow, improve its business performance, and accelerate its business transition to the real economy, the firm announced earlier.

On June 5, Golden Dragon said it planned to sell its whole 68 percent stake in Zhongshan Securities to speed up its business transition to data centers and recover funds. Golden Dragon’s stock plunged that day as well.

The sale is a response to the government's call for companies to move away from the financial industry to focus on their core businesses and the real economy, Securities Times reported the day after, citing a person close to Zhongshan Securities.

Golden Dragon used to specialize in securities trading but started focusing on the intelligent computing center business in April to promote its business transition to the real economy and strive to improve its earnings.

Editor: Futura Costaglione