Author: Cao Lu
In the end, another fund manager at the general manager level of the research department resigned.
On February 11, Great Wall Fund issued six fund manager change announcements in a row. The former fund manager He Yiguang resigned. Before leaving, he also served as the general manager and assistant general manager of the Great Wall Fund Research Department.
According to the announcement, the products previously managed by He Yiguang will be managed by Yang Jianhua, deputy general manager and investment director of the company, led by fund managers Zhao Fengfei, Su Junyan, Zhou Shibo, Han Lin, and Tang Ran respectively.
According to statistics from China Business News, 27 fund managers from 25 fund companies have resigned since the beginning of this year.
After combing the data, the reporter found that a total of 1,310 fund managers have left their posts in the past five years, and the number and scope of the fund managers involved are increasing every year.
For example, the number of resigned fund managers in 2018 was 186, but in 2022 this number has risen to 325, and the companies involved have also risen from 82 to 132.
"Old", "middle" and "new" take over respectively
A few days ago, Great Wall Fund issued an announcement stating that fund manager He Yiguang has resigned from several of its products and has gone through the cancellation procedures with the China Fund Industry Association as required.
According to public information, He Yiguang joined the Great Wall Fund in 2011 and began working as a fund manager in 2015. Before leaving, he managed a total of 6 active equity products, with a total fund size of 6.132 billion yuan.
Great Wall Fund stated that the resignation was due to personal reasons. He Yiguang has worked in the company for 12 years and is an excellent talent independently cultivated by the company. The company respects his decision at this age and experience.
As early as January this year, there were rumors in the industry that He Yiguang would have new moves after the Spring Festival.
So, will he turn around and "run privately"?
An unnamed industry insider revealed to reporters that He Yiguang's next stop may be a public offering fund company in Shanghai.
However, the news has not been confirmed yet.
Regarding the follow-up investment operation of the six fund products, Great Wall Fund stated that after careful research, it has selected a suitable fund manager for each fund to take over management based on the investment style and competence circle of the existing fund managers.
Judging from the final announcement of the succession list, Great Wall Fund has all the "old", "middle" and "new" lineups, which shows that the company has spent a lot of thought on this handover.
For example, Yang Jianhua, who has more than 20 years of experience in the industry, "brings the old with the new" and co-manages Great Wall's quality growth with Su Junyan, a cutting-edge fund manager; Pan Growth and Great Wall Research Selection.
Among them, Zhou Shibo is a new-generation fund manager recognized by institutional investors in the past two years.
According to Wind data, since he managed Great Wall to optimize and upgrade A, the proportion of institutional investors has increased significantly, from 52.71% at the end of 2020 to 88.84% in the mid-2022 report.
At the same time, the reporter also noticed that both He Yiguang, who resigned, and Zhou Shibo, Zhao Fengfei, Su Junyan, and Tang Ran, who took over this time, all grew up in the research team of Great Wall Fund and took up the position of fund manager.
Wind data shows that among the 31 fund managers of Great Wall Fund, 26 are internally trained, accounting for more than 80%.
“We have been working hard to create a relatively pure investment research platform, so that people with self-motivation and subjective initiative have the space and stage to play, and maximize their personal potential. Team members share a high degree of collaboration while maintaining their own differentiation. Let people of different styles grow up on this platform." Yang Jianhua told reporters.
Fund manager turnover accelerates
In fact, in the wave of personnel changes in the entire public offering industry, the resignation announcement of a fund manager is quite common.
According to statistics from China Business News, as of February 12, 2023, 27 public fund managers have resigned since the beginning of the year, compared with 34 fund managers who resigned in the same period last year.
From the perspective of the fund companies involved, the fund managers who have resigned this year have involved 25 fund companies. Among them, two people from Great Wall Fund and Founder Securities have resigned, and one person has resigned from the rest of the companies.
Judging from the reasons for the resignation of the fund manager disclosed in the announcement, "personal reasons" and "personal development reasons" are the main ones.
"Some fund managers with good performance may take the initiative or be poached to a larger or more desirable platform, and some resign due to performance appraisal and other factors." An insider of a public offering in South China told reporters that the story of star fund managers leaving, It has been staged too many times in the public offering fund industry, and now most of the industry has weakened the concept of "star" individuals, but pays more attention to the cultivation of the overall strength of the investment research team, and is more willing to build a team-based and platform-based model.
If the time is extended, the reporter found after sorting out Wind data that, in the past five years, the number of fund managers leaving has generally shown an upward trend.
Among them, the number of resigned fund managers in 2018 was 186, while in 2019 and 2020, more than 200 fund managers resigned, and in 2021 and 2022, the number of resigned fund managers exceeded 300.
As of now, more than 1,300 fund managers have announced their departure since 2018.
From the perspective of fund companies, the scope involved is getting wider and wider.
According to the statistics of China Business News, 82 and 95 fund companies "lost" talents in 2018 and 2019 respectively, and in 2020, this number will officially break through the 100 integer mark, reaching 109; in 2021 and 2022, this number Increase again, respectively 123, 132.
"This is something that will inevitably happen in the rapid development stage of the industry. Talent resources are constantly flowing and the survival of the fittest." An industry analyst told reporters that it is a personal choice for public-raised talents to "go to the public" or "privately", and industry competition is increasing. Under intense circumstances, talent changes are reasonable, and the phenomenon of normal flow of fund managers should be treated rationally.
However, there are also some investors who include changes in fund managers in their "base selection" conditions.
Ms. Li, who has 7 years of investment experience, told the reporter, "I would not choose products from companies whose fund managers change too frequently, because if I can't retain talents, how can I have the intention to make good products?"
Then, if the fund manager leaves, will the investor immediately redeem the fund product?
Ms. Li's response to this question was, "Not necessarily."
In its view, if it is "directed at the fund manager", then there is a high probability that it will choose to redeem; if the product track is optimistic about it, and the successor's style and past performance meet its selection criteria, it will There is a certain period of observation to consider whether to redeem.
Relevant people in fund companies said that after the fund manager resigns, it does not mean that the performance of related products will definitely be poor.
"When the fund company chooses the successor fund manager, it makes such a decision after careful consideration based on its style and circle of competence, and believes that it has the strength and potential to manage the product well." The person said.