 With these impressive positions and with the dawn of professionalism, which allowed private investors to own football clubs the club decided to take advantage of this and separate from their parent club and sell the team to Pan Sutong and his company Matsunichi Digital Holdings Limited to form Guangzhou Matsunichi F.C.on 28 February 1995.In the club's debut season under new ownership the team continued their upswing in results and came runners-up within the division at the end of the 1995 campaign and gained promotion to the top tier for the first time.