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Recently, a topic "Ace fund managers lose 100 million yuan on average every two days" has once again put fund investment at the forefront of public opinion.

An average loss of 100 million yuan in two days

Public information shows that Liu Gesong has served as a fund manager in three fund companies, namely China Post Venture Capital Fund, Rongtong Fund and GF Fund, and the returns of the funds he managed have experienced many ups and downs.

During his tenure at Rongtong Fund, Liu Gesong first managed Rongtong Leading Growth Hybrid Fund, which encountered the "Internet +" wave at the time. From the end of 2014 to the first half of 2015, the net value ofSoaring close200%; However, starting from the second half of 2015, the net value of the fundDown more than 50%。

In addition, the two funds, Rongtong Internet Media and Rongtong New Regional New Economy, issued by Liu Gesong in April and May 2015, suffered losses of 43.5% and 49.5% respectively during his tenure.Almost cut in half.

Data source: Wind

A similar experience also happened during Liu Gesong's tenure at GF Fund.

In 2019, Liu Gesong once again hit the technological wave. The three funds he managed, namely, GF Dual Engine Upgrade, GF Innovation Upgrade and GF Diversified Emerging Fund, achieved a yield ofDouble all, taking the top three spots in the yield of public equity funds that year, Liu Gesong became famous. After 2021, Liu Gesong's return on office has fallen by more than 20% from the high point in 2021.50%。

Data shows that in 2022 and 2023, the six funds managed by Liu Gesong suffered a total loss of 18.43 billion and 18.07 billion respectively.The total loss in two years was 36.5 billion.The average loss in the past two days was 100 million.

Data source: Wind

Judging from the public holdings, Liu Gesong switched between different industry trends. In early 2017, he invested in liquor, home appliances, consumer electronics, etc. In 2019, he invested in photovoltaics, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, etc. In 2020, Liu Gesong began to invest heavily in new energy and other industries. As of the end of June 2024, 6 of Liu Gesong's top 10 holdings are still new energy-related companies.

Investing in a single company may result in losses exceeding 5 billion

Many fund managers of GF Fund have joined the ranks of heavy holdings in new energy. After the third quarter of 2021, more than half of the top ten holdings of GF Fund are companies related to new energy.

Data source: Wind

JA Solar is a typical example.

In the third quarter of 2021, JA Solar entered the top ten holdings of GF Fund for the first time. In the second quarter of 2023, 42 funds under GF Fund held a large position in JA Solar. JA Solar's 2023 semi-annual report shows that among the top ten shareholders of JA Solar, funds under GF Fund occupy 6 seats.

As of August 7 this year, JA Solar's stock pricesinceThe historical high has fallen by more than 80%Affected by this, in the second quarter of 2024, GF Fund basically declared a "big defeat" in its investment in JA Solar Technology.

As of the end of the second quarter, JA Solar Technology dropped sharply to 19th place on GF Fund's list of heavily-held stocks; the number of funds managed by Liu Gesong and another fund manager Zheng Chengran that held heavy holdings in JA Solar Technology also dropped from 6 and 7 at the peak to 4 and 1 in the second quarter.

Wind data shows that at the end of 2022, the market value of JA Solar held by GF Fund reached a peak of nearly 12 billion. As of the end of the second quarter of this year,GF Fund’s investment in JA Solar may have caused losses of more than 5 billion since its peak.

Public offerings are getting rid of "celebrity" and the number of people leaving has hit a new high

In the public offering industry, there is an over-reliance on a single star fund manager, especially for small and medium-sized funds, such as Cai Songsong at Nuoan Fund, Qiu Dongrong at Zhonggeng Fund, and currently Jiang Cheng at Zhongtai Asset Management and Zhao Yi at Quanguo Fund.

According to the "Opinions on Strengthening Supervision of Securities Companies and Publicly Offered Funds and Accelerating the Construction of First-Class Investment Banks and Investment Institutions (Trial)" previously issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, at present, the general direction of development for fund companies is to abandon the promotion of star fund managers and strengthen the construction of a "platform-based, team-based, integrated, multi-strategy" investment and research system.

According to a reporter from 21st Century Business Herald, de-"celebrityization" has become the general trend in the industry. In recent years, fund companies have gradually downplayed the promotion of star fund managers and instead focused on promoting the investment teams, research systems, risk control mechanisms and corporate culture behind them.

Public offering fund resignations hit a new high

Wind data shows that 212 public fund managers will leave their positions in 2024 (from the beginning of 2024 to August 7, 2024), a record high in the past three years. In contrast, 184 managers left in 2023, 179 in 2022, and 190 in 2021.

According to Yang Delong, chief economist of Qianhai Kaiyuan Fund, many fund managers left this year, which can be divided into two types: one is passive resignation due toPoor performance; The other is to resign voluntarily, becauseDissatisfied with salary, or out of consideration for developing personal career.

Sun Enxiang, head of wealth management at Paipai.com, also said that a large number of fund managers have resigned this year, mainly due to poor product performance and failure to meet company performance appraisal standards. The significant salary cuts and salary limits imposed by some institutions, as well as salary withdrawals or personal reasons due to tracing back to violations, are also important factors that accelerate the resignation of fund managers.

Special phenomenon: Fund managers are “retrained”

Several fund industry insiders interviewed by the 21st Century Business Herald reporter pointed out that the "retraining" of fund managers is a special phenomenon that has emerged in recent years, that is, fund managers are transferred to become researchers or assistant fund managers.This phenomenon is particularly evident this year.

According to incomplete statistics from the reporter, in the past two months, at least five fund managers have been transferred to researchers or assistant fund managers.

• On July 26, Suzaku Fund issued an announcement that Wang Zhuangfei resigned as fund manager and transferred to a research position;

• On July 18, Hongde Fund issued an announcement that Mao Jingping resigned as fund manager and transferred to researcher;

• On July 5, Xinhua Fund issued an announcement that Yu Hang resigned as fund manager and transferred to the position of assistant fund manager;

• On June 22, Soochow Fund issued a series of announcements, stating that the company’s two fund managers, Ding Ge and Wang Rui, resigned from all the products they managed and transferred to the company’s industry researchers.
  

The reporter checked the information and found that the fund managers who have recently changed jobs include active equity fund managers, quantitative fund managers, as well as fixed-income bond fund managers and money market fund managers.

Survival of the fittest

"The fund manager's job transfer actually means he failed the assessment and was demoted. Maybe due to contractual reasons, he couldn't be persuaded to resign directly, so he switched to being a researcher."A public fund person said it very pointedly.

According to industry insiders, many fund companies evaluate performance once a year, but the performance in the past year, the past three years and the long term all have a certain weight in the evaluation. Generally, fund companies will not fire fund managers because of poor performance in one year. Most fund managers are fired only when they have seriously underperformed the market for two years or more.

"Of course, if a new fund manager has particularly poor performance within one year of taking office, he will also be dismissed. This is to be responsible to investors," said the public fund person mentioned above.

Yang Delong also pointed out that some fund managers "returned to school for retraining" mainly because of poor performance, shrinking fund size, and even far below the minimum holding size of 50 million, so the fund was liquidated, leaving the fund managers in the embarrassing situation of having no funds to manage, and they had to return to school to be researchers.

In addition, Wang Wei, a researcher at Jinzhang Investment under Ge Shang Financial Management, believes that another reason is that fund companies have tightened their assessment systems for fund managers and may adjust the positions of fund managers based on internal assessment results, leading to an increase in the phenomenon of fund managers changing jobs.

Sun Enxiang introduced that fund managers who hold the power to make investment decisions must have a comprehensive understanding of the investment targets in the products they manage and have a broad circle of competence, while researchers are more likely to conduct in-depth research in the industry fields they are responsible for. When the fund performance is poor and performance appraisals are tightened, fund managers can easily be "retrained" through the survival of the fittest.

"In the past, many fund managers left the public sector for private sector jobs. However, this year the market has fluctuated violently and the private equity industry is subject to strict regulation. It is difficult for some public fund managers who chose to leave the public sector for private sector jobs to raise funds for development. At this time, some fund managers can only choose to change jobs," said Sun Enxiang.

Source | 21st Century Business Herald (Reporter: Pang Huawei), Nandu Wancaishe

SFC

Editor of this issue: Liu Xueying

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