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Our reporter Zhang Mei and Chen Feng from Beijing reported

Recently, BlackRock Fund Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "BlackRock Fund") announced another senior management adjustment, with Lu Wenjie, deputy general manager and chief investment officer, leaving the position. This is another important personnel change since the legal representative of BlackRock Fund was changed from Zhang Chi to Chen Jian in March this year.

In recent years, although BlackRock Fund has continued to increase its capital and its registered capital has grown to 1.25 billion yuan, the performance of most of its products has been unsatisfactory and the overall management scale has also declined significantly.

Wind data shows that as of August 2, the company's first fund product, BlackRock China New Horizons A/C Fund, had a return rate of -19.08% and -19.48% respectively in the past year.

Two consecutive days of absence

BlackRock Fund is China's first wholly foreign-owned public fund management company. According to information, BlackRock Fund was established on September 10, 2020, and is 100% owned by BlackRock Financial Management, Inc., a subsidiary of the international giant BlackRock Group.

On March 21, 2024, BlackRock Fund completed the change of its legal representative, from Zhang Chi to Chen Jian. Less than half a year later, BlackRock Fund's senior management changed again.

On July 31, 2024, BlackRock Fund issued the "Announcement of Senior Management Changes". The announcement showed that as of July 31, 2024, BlackRock Fund's Deputy General Manager and Chief Investment Officer Lu Wenjie will resign.

Screenshot of the official website announcement

Regarding this personnel adjustment, an article forwarded by the official WeChat account of BlackRock Fund stated that Lu Wenjie's job adjustment was to "expand his scope of responsibilities and serve as investment strategist for Greater China." However, in the aforementioned "Announcement on Changes in Senior Management Personnel", the column "Transferred to other positions in the company" clearly stated "None."

Screenshot of the official WeChat article

Caijing magazine reported that, in fact, Lu Wenjie is no longer responsible for domestic public offering investment. People close to BlackRock Fund revealed that the entity Lu Wenjie serves in has changed. He left BlackRock Fund and took up research work for BlackRock Group.

Before leaving, Lu Wenjie not only served as the chief investment officer, but also as the fund manager of related products, with a management scale of about 245 million yuan. However, the returns of his two funds (BlackRock Hong Kong Stock Connect Vision A and BlackRock Advanced Manufacturing One-Year Holding A) were negative during his tenure, with returns of -31.15% and -16.13% respectively.

Is poor performance one of the reasons for his job adjustment? In this regard, a reporter from the China Times called the BlackRock Fund switchboard on August 5. The person who answered the call said "Lu Wenjie is not here temporarily and cannot be transferred" before transferring the call. The staff then recorded the reporter's questions and contact information. On August 6, the reporter called BlackRock Fund again and was still told that "Lu Wenjie is not here." The staff said: "Yesterday's question has been transferred. If relevant colleagues are interested in contacting, they will contact you." As of press time, the reporter has not received a reply.

Lu Wenjie took up the position of investment director and head of investment research department of BlackRock Funds on August 20, 2021. From his past resume, Lu Wenjie holds a master's degree in applied mathematics from Shanghai Jiaotong University, a master's degree in engineering from Ecole Centrale Paris, and a chartered financial analyst (CFA). He has served as an investment strategist at UBS Securities Co., Ltd., a portfolio allocation manager at Ping An Asset Management Co., Ltd., and an investment manager at China International Capital Corporation (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. In addition, Lu Wenjie has also worked at Deutsche Bank Hong Kong Branch and Boston Consulting Group (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.

Start a new round of capital increase

On July 17, 2024, BlackRock Fund completed the change of registered capital, and the changed registered capital became 1.25 billion yuan.

Previously, information from the 2023 annual report showed that there were 105 people paying social security at BlackRock Fund, and on July 24, 2023, the registered capital of 1 billion yuan was paid in full.

Since its establishment in September 2020, BlackRock Fund has undergone several capital increases, and its registered capital has gradually increased from the initial 300 million yuan.

Specifically, in May 2022, shareholder BlackRock Financial Management increased its capital by 200 million yuan, and the registered capital reached 500 million yuan; in November 2022, the major shareholder increased its capital by another 200 million yuan, and the registered capital increased to 700 million yuan; in July 2023, the major shareholder increased its capital for the third time by 300 million yuan, and the registered capital became 1 billion yuan.

On July 17 this year, the major shareholder increased the capital by 250 million yuan again, which was the fourth capital increase since the establishment of BlackRock Fund. After this capital increase, the registered capital of BlackRock Fund has increased by 950 million yuan compared with the beginning of the company's establishment.

Despite the continuous growth in registered capital, the scale of public fund management of BlackRock Fund has declined significantly in recent years.

Wang Tieniu, director of Ji'an Jinxin Fund Evaluation Center, said that the recent series of important personnel changes and capital increase measures involving the investment team of BlackRock Fund show that BlackRock Group, as the world's largest asset management institution, still attaches great importance to the layout of the Chinese market. Secondly, through the adjustment of the senior management team, the company hopes to better respond to changes and challenges in the domestic market in the future, so as to build an investment research system that is more suitable for the domestic market.

"Unsuitable for local climate"

Wind Fund data shows that as of August 2, BlackRock's fund assets totaled 5.587 billion yuan, down 30.53% from 8.042 billion yuan at the end of last year. Among them, the net asset value of mixed funds accounted for 64.47%, and the net asset value of bond funds accounted for 35.53%.

At present, there are 18 products under BlackRock Fund that are counted in Wind data (AC is counted separately). Except for 6 products with no performance data, the returns of the remaining products in the past year are all negative. Among them, BlackRock China New Horizon A/C has the worst returns, with returns of -19.08%/-19.48% in the past year respectively.

However, judging from the performance in the past six months, the returns of BlackRock Fund's products have improved slightly. Except for BlackRock Excellence A/C, which still lost money with a return rate of -5.76%/-5.86%, the returns of other products are all positive.

In addition, only BlackRock Eversheds 30-Day Holding A/C maintained positive returns in the past three months, with yields of 0.92%/0.86%.

Since the establishment of BlackRock's first product, BlackRock China New Horizons A/C on September 21, 2021, the maximum fundraising scale (third quarter of 2021) reached 6.681 billion yuan, but as of now, the scale of these two funds has been reduced to 2.15823 billion yuan/338.78 million yuan.

In terms of bond products, the scale of the medium- and long-term pure bond fund BlackRock Eversheds 30-Day Holding A/C (established on December 25, 2023) was 4.315 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2023, 820 million yuan in the first quarter of 2024, and 323 million yuan at the end of the second quarter of 2024. The fund's net value rose, but its asset size also decreased significantly, which may have caused large redemptions by investors.

Wang Tieniu told the China Times reporter that BlackRock Group is a leading global asset management giant, managing total assets of more than 10 trillion US dollars and providing services to clients in more than 100 countries and regions. However, the current cumulative net value of BlackRock's first product, BlackRock China New Horizons, is only 0.56. It can be said that it has neither met the general expectations of the industry nor caused significant losses to investors.

Wang Tieniu believes that the reasons for the above problems are that BlackRock Fund's domestic product layout is not reasonable enough. For example, in the context of large fluctuations in the domestic A-share market, the issuance of money and bond products is obviously insufficient; secondly, the advantages of foreign asset management institutions are not brought into play, such as overseas investment in QDII funds and mutual recognition funds, and no corresponding layout is made; thirdly, BlackRock Fund's investment and stock selection models cannot adapt well to the characteristics of the Chinese market. These problems are directly related to the strategic planning and layout of senior executives.

Editor-in-charge: Ma Xiaochao Editor-in-chief: Xia Shencha