This year, 39 public fund institutions 'change leadership'.

Staff Reporter Peng Yansong

Recently, executive changes in the public fund industry have once again attracted attention. On July 4, Huiquan Fund released an announcement stating that its General Manager Chen Hongbin resigned due to personal reasons, and founder Liang Yongqiang has been reappointed as General Manager. This is the third time Liang Yongqiang has served as General Manager of a public fund institution, with only a little over one year between his previous resignation and this reappointment.

The reporter’s review found that within this year, multiple small and mid-sized public fund institutions have seen core position changes such as chairman, General Manager, and Deputy General Manager. Behind these personnel adjustments are both normal arrangements for operational management and also new circumstances that some small and mid-sized public funds are facing in terms of scale growth, product layout, and differentiated competition.

Optimization and Restructuring of Industry Talent Resources

According to materials, Liang Yongqiang previously served as Deputy General Manager of the Investment Management Department and General Manager of the Quantitative Investment Department at Huashang Fund, as well as Deputy General Manager and General Manager of that company. From June 2020 to June 2025, he served as General Manager of Huiquan Fund.

Huiquan Fund is a typical representative of a privately owned public fund. Since its establishment in June 2020, the company’s assets under management have declined from a peak of 36.8 billion yuan at the end of 2021 to the current 19.92 billion yuan. The cumulative net asset values of its early-issued products—Huiquan Strategy Preferred Hybrid and Huiquan Zhenxin Zhiyuan Hybrid—remain below the par value of 1 yuan. Performance losses have weighed on scale. After this company experienced executive turnover and fluctuations in its management scale, the founder again takes back control this time, indicating that the company is once again directly led by its founder in directing its operating strategy.

Wind data shows that as of July 5, 84 public fund institutions have completed executive changes this year, involving 193 person-times of executive changes. Among them, 39 institutions have “changed leadership” (changes in chairman or General Manager positions). Specifically, 20 institutions replaced their chairman, and 26 institutions replaced their General Manager (including overlapping institutions). Only in June alone, eight institutions—including Bank of Communications Schroder Fund, ABC-CA Fund, Shangyi Fund, and Debang Fund—completed “leadership changes.”

In terms of structure, small and mid-sized public fund institutions have seen relatively frequent executive changes. Based on the reporter’s review, among the 26 public fund institutions that changed their General Managers, the average assets-under-management scale is only 1400 billion yuan (calculated using data as of the end of Q1 this year). Among them, some executives left their posts in less than a year, putting personnel stability to the test.

Chen Yuheng, a senior investment advisor at Shaanxi Jufeng Investment Information Co., Ltd., told the Securities Daily reporter that factors such as strategic adjustments by the company, changes in shareholder backgrounds, retirement upon reaching the retirement age, and individuals’ career planning collectively gave rise to this round of personnel changes. This trend is both an optimization and reshuffling of industry talent resources and a deeper reflection of high-quality development in the public fund industry.

Synergy Between Executive Adjustments and Strategic Transformation

Looking through cases of executive changes within this year, some institutions have proactively adjusted due to improvements in their governance structures. For example, CCB Credit Principal Asset Management carried out a smooth handover after the former chairman retired due to reaching retirement age. Debang Fund introduced Yuchi Ping, who has extensive management experience, as chairman. Meanwhile, some institutions were forced into “replacing leadership” due to performance pressure and scale decline.

One phenomenon worth noting is that executive adjustments at some small and mid-sized public fund institutions are highly coordinated with strategic transformation. Taking Debang Fund as an example, the newly appointed chairman Yuchi Ping, during his tenure at Shangyi Fund, promoted the company’s management scale to grow from 1170 billion yuan to 2551 billion yuan, and its ranking in non-monetary assets under management rose from 47th to 33rd. Debang Fund said it will build a business layout driven by three engines—“equities + fixed income + quantitative”—and will focus on distinctive, differentiated development.

Against the backdrop of the continuously intensifying “head effect” in the public fund industry, more and more small and mid-sized public fund institutions are seeking differentiated competition paths by optimizing their management. From simply “changing people” to systematically “changing ideas,” the talent reshuffle at small and mid-sized public fund institutions is shifting from passive responses to proactive planning.

Yang Delong, chief economist and fund manager of Qianhai Open Source Fund, told the Securities Daily reporter that whether executive adjustments can truly translate into improvements at the operational level hinges on the unity between strategic continuity and execution capability. Frequent leadership changes in the short term are not only unfavorable for team stability, but may also intensify investors’ doubts about corporate governance. For small and mid-sized public fund institutions, under the overall requirements for the industry’s high-quality development, finding the right positioning and focusing on core capabilities is more important than the personnel reshuffling itself.

(Editor: Xu Nannan)

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