Zhongxin Finance, September 24th: Tao Geng, President of Guotai Junan Asset Management: China's asset management industry needs a "big ecology" to reshape the core competitiveness of "big asset management"
Author Fan Zhonghua Gao Zhimiao
China's asset management industry is ushering in a period of high-quality development.
In 2021, China's "asset management highland" Shanghai proposed to accelerate the construction of a global asset management center, and a large number of wholly foreign-owned asset management institutions "scrambled" to Shanghai; The transition period of “New Asset Management Regulations”) has officially ended, and China’s domestic asset management industry has also entered a new stage of high-quality development.
From the drastic reform to the accelerated pace of internationalization, in the view of Tao Geng, Vice Chairman and President of Guotai Junan Securities Asset Management Company (hereinafter referred to as "Guotai Junan Asset Management") and Vice Chairman of Shanghai Asset Management Association, China's asset management industry is undergoing It is only after this "baptism" that they have the ability to participate in international competitions.
Asset Management New Regulations Forging Industry Core Competitiveness
"The new asset management regulations have pushed asset management institutions to compress traditional channel business and transform into active management, forging the industry's true core competitiveness," Tao Geng said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China-Singapore Finance recently, although there is no shortage of this process. The "pain" of transformation has finally enabled the fast-growing Chinese asset management industry to avoid potential huge risks and enter the track of healthy development.
"Before, the channel business was the main source of income for some securities companies' asset management, and there was a lack of active management talents in the industry. Therefore, in the process of transformation, how to unite people's hearts and retrain talents is a common problem in the industry," Tao Geng said. Guotai Junan Asset Management, which has begun to transform, has elevated the equity investment department to a key position, reshaped the buy-side investment and research system that puts in-depth research first, promotes investment, and then uses investment to back up research, and rebuilds the core capabilities of asset management from 0 to 1.
At present, Guotai Junan Asset Management has transformed into a new three-wheel-driven model of "investment + financing", "private equity + public offering", and "institution + retail", creating a purely active business map constructed by "pan-fixed income + pan-equity + financing".
"After this baptism, the entire securities firm's asset management industry has stepped out of the 'comfort zone' and ushered in great development." Tao Geng recalled the market practice in the four years since the implementation of the new asset management regulations and pointed out that from the overall scale, the proportion of active management in the industry has continued to increase. , the leading institutions have formed obvious advantages; from the perspective of asset structure, the scale of pan-equity investment such as stocks, FOF, and quantification has ushered in explosive growth.
The improvement of the core capabilities of asset management has also enabled the industry to continuously burst into innovation.
Tao Geng pointed out that, from participating in refinancing, the Science and Technology Innovation Board, the New Third Board, to the listing and issuance of new fund products such as publicly offered REITs, and then to the interbank deposit certificate index funds trying to substitute cargo bases, "fixed income +", and pension FOF funds are booming, and securities companies are developing rapidly. The investment scope of the asset management industry is constantly expanding, which better adapts to the diversified market demands and serves the real economy solidly.
It's time for Shanghai to build a global asset management center
In May 2021, Shanghai proposed to accelerate the construction of a global asset management center. In Tao Geng's view, this complements Shanghai's mission of building an "international financial center" over the years.
"On the one hand, asset management is an important part of the financial center. At present, with the continuous acceleration of China's financial opening up, the territory of the asset management industry is also expanding and growing. Building a global asset management center will become an international financial center in the new era. New thrust." Tao Geng said.
On the other hand, he pointed out that under the goal of building a global asset management center, the Shanghai government has carried out strong policy support and forward-looking top-level design; at the same time, as an international financial center, Shanghai has gathered the most complete categories in the country. The financial factor market has become a strong support for the development of the asset management industry; third, service institutions related to the asset management industry are constantly entering, and the ecology is becoming more and more perfect; fourth, different types of asset management institutions are complete, in addition to a large number of Chinese-funded institutions, 76 A number of asset management institutions have set up companies in Shanghai, accounting for more than 90% of the total number of foreign asset management companies in the country, of which 9 belong to the top ten asset management companies in the world, with a high degree of aggregation and visibility.
In addition, Tao Geng believes that Shanghai, as the most open city in China, not only takes the lead in innovating and exploring financial opening policies such as qualified domestic limited partners, but also has gathered considerable global financial talents in the past 20 years, forming a mature The transparent market-oriented economic environment and the pioneering efforts to improve the financial legal system constitute the "soft power" for Shanghai to build an international asset management center.
Cross-border exchanges promote the maturity of Shanghai's asset management ecosystem
To create a mature international asset management ecosystem, where else should Shanghai make efforts?
Tao Geng pointed out that "cross-border" communication in the financial industry is very important.
"Currently, Shanghai's asset management ecological elements are complete. To activate its innovation potential and vitality, it is necessary to break the traditional 'vertical barriers' between sub-sectors such as banks, securities companies, insurance, and funds, and to allow industry information to flow. To achieve 'cross-border innovation' in the collision, the second is conducive to the formation of industry synergy to promote the innovation and development of the asset management industry, and the third is conducive to the industry's leading institutions to play a benchmarking role and lead the development of the industry."
Tao Geng said that under the goal of building an international asset management center, Shanghai has recently established an asset management association.
"As a platform that integrates all types of Chinese and foreign-funded asset management institutions in the financial industry, its value is precisely to give full play to the demonstration effect of leading institutions, and to promote 'break-through exchanges' between sub-industries and Chinese and foreign institutions."
"For example, when it comes to financial opening to the outside world, in fact, whether 'bringing in' or 'going out' is not an easy proposition for Chinese and foreign asset management institutions. How to better adapt to the 'overseas' market and serve local customers Waiting for 'common problems', more two-way communication and learning can be conducted between Chinese and foreign institutions, which will greatly help speed up each other's globalization," Tao Geng said, "Shanghai's asset management ecosystem needs to move from perfect to mature, and it is urgent It is necessary to gather the strength of the industry to achieve open cooperation and win-win.” (End)