Active equity funds set subscription records; fourth-generation fund managers take the stage

Securities Times Reporter Yu Shipeng

From fundraising scale to the number of subscription accounts, active equity funds are experiencing a comprehensive recovery.

The Securities Times reporter noted that the Guangfa Growth Selection, established on March 13, successfully raised funds from 149,200 accounts; the Yongying Sharp Growth Hybrid, established on March 10, even attracted 230,400 accounts. This data also broke the record for subscription accounts for active equity funds established since October 2021. Starting from 2025, active equity funds are gradually emerging from a downturn, initially driven by scale, with fundraising amounts consecutively surpassing 2 billion, 3 billion, and even 5 billion yuan, and the number of subscribers reaching new highs.

Public Fund “Stars” Take the Lead

In the recent warm-up of active equity fund issuance, it is common to see well-known fund managers at the helm. According to official announcements, the Guangfa Growth Selection, with a fundraising scale of 2.519 billion yuan, is managed by Chen Wenzhong; the Anxin Balanced Zhi Yuan Hybrid, set to be launched on March 16, will be managed by the renowned fund manager Zhang Jing.

In fact, among funds established since 2026, names like Li Wenbin, Chen Wenzhong, Yang Dong, Lei Zhiyong, Dong Han, Yang Meng, Nong Libing, and Ma Lina are frequently associated with new fund managers. Most of them are core research and investment personnel at their fund companies, with impressive past performance, and are emerging as “new stars” in the new wave of active equity fund development since 2025.

For example, Chen Wenzhong is currently head of the Strategic Emerging Strategies team at Guangfa Fund. He has been managing funds since 2021, with funds like Guangfa Growth Launch achieving over 180% returns during his tenure; Zhang Jing is a veteran with 18 years of securities experience, currently general manager of the Balanced Investment Department at Anxin Fund. Under his management, the Anxin Flexible Allocation Hybrid A has nearly doubled in value over more than 8 years; Li Wenbin, the proposed manager of Yongying Sharp Growth Hybrid, has over ten years of experience and is now co-general manager of the equity investment department at Yongying Fund. Funds he manages, such as Yongying Sharp Progress Hybrid and Yongying Technology Drive, have achieved over 100% phased returns; the Morgan Shanghai-Hong Kong-Shenzhen Tech Fund, established at the end of January this year with a scale of 4.424 billion yuan, is managed by Lei Zhiyong. His other fund, Morgan Digital Economy, won the performance championship in the public fund industry in 2024.

The Prototype of the Fourth Generation Fund Managers Has Emerged

Looking back at nearly 30 years of development in the public fund industry, each peak has been accompanied by the rise of a group of active equity fund managers. From the Securities Times’ ongoing observations, the collective leadership of well-known fund managers has become a notable feature of this year’s active fund issuance, signaling two major trends:

First, active equity funds, which began to emerge from a downturn starting in 2025, have basically achieved a comprehensive recovery in core issuance indicators. Since 2025, new funds with scales exceeding 1 billion yuan have frequently appeared. Besides the “new stars” mentioned above, fund managers such as Lan Xiaokang, Yan Siqian, and Gao Nan are also managing these new funds.

This March, the recovery of active equity funds has extended from fundraising scale to the number of effective subscription accounts. According to Wind data, since 2025, the top ten funds by subscription accounts are all products established in 2026. Among them, the Yongying Sharp Growth Hybrid, established on March 10, raised 5.867 billion yuan and attracted 230,400 subscription accounts. For funds classified as partial stock hybrids and general equity funds, this data also set a new record for subscription accounts for active equity funds established since October 2021.

Second, under the improvement in performance, scale, and reputation, the prototype of the fourth generation of public fund managers is gradually taking shape. This includes the aforementioned managers leading new funds, as well as those who have achieved management scales exceeding 100 billion yuan during the tech boom since 2025, such as Lei Tao of Debang Fund and Ren Jie of Yongying Fund.

Previously, active equity fund managers as a group have been widely followed, experiencing three stages: first, from 1998 to around 2008, the early development phase with the “Old Ten” fund managers appearing together, including Gu Jiang and Deng Xiaofeng of Bosera Fund, and Wang Hongyuan of Southern Fund; second, from 2009 to 2018, during the industry expansion, champions like Ren Zesong quickly rose to prominence; third, from 2019 to around 2023, with a focus on consumption, liquor, and other “core assets,” managers like Zhang Kun, Ge Lan, Liu Yanchun, and Qu Yang gained prominence.

Two Major Challenges Facing the New Generation of Fund Managers

“Fund managers are one of the key core assets. This group of talented individuals is a vital pillar for the sustainable and healthy development of the fund industry,” said a senior executive at a public fund company in South China with over 20 years of experience, to Securities Times. Historically, each market cycle has produced excess returns, making outstanding active equity fund managers highly sought after. In recent years, many new faces have appeared among active fund managers, who have been leading the market since the “9.24” rally in 2024, gradually becoming another wave of “new stars” in the public fund industry.

A fund manager in Beijing told Securities Times that to enter the market’s view, a fund manager generally needs two conditions: first, an impressive track record; second, leading a new fund, which involves gaining support from channels and institutional investors. In this sense, Li Wenbin, Gao Nan, Lan Xiaokang, and others are exemplifying the new generation of active fund managers.

“Compared to the previous three generations, the fourth generation of fund managers generally manages over 100 billion yuan. With performance and company platform support, they show strong capital attraction. However, fund companies are also trying to avoid excessive scale that could harm performance. Recently, new fund launches have generally limited fundraising to around 2 to 3 billion yuan. Additionally, fund companies are downplaying individual promotion in marketing, emphasizing the advantages of research teams and mechanisms,” said the aforementioned active equity fund manager.

“The new generation of fund managers mostly favors technology growth styles, has a broader vision, richer knowledge reserves, and a higher acceptance of new tools like AI. They are undoubtedly moving faster than their predecessors, but I hope they can go further and more steadily,” said a senior researcher at a Shenzhen-based fund research institute. The emergence of this new group of active fund managers has brought new vitality to the fund industry and even the large asset management sector.

“Of course, the current environment is more complex than before,” the researcher added. The new generation of fund managers faces two major challenges: first, with the rise of passive index investing, overall market alpha may decline, making it harder to achieve consistent excess returns; second, in increasingly structured markets, how to expand strategy capacity and reduce stock concentration to cope with potential style shifts and sharp net value declines. Compared to managers heavily invested in liquor and consumption stocks, the new generation still shows significant concentration, and some have short investment histories, with their frameworks yet to withstand full market cycles.