Fund Words of Advice: A multidimensional look at China Life Anbao's general manager change and declining equity performance

Blue Whale News, June 29 (Reporter Qi Hezhong) The insurance-affiliated fund company China Life Anbao has changed its general manager.

On June 23, the company announced that General Manager E Hua had stepped down due to work arrangements, and Liu Zhongjiang took over as general manager. Liu previously served as general manager of direct investment business and general manager of the fixed-income investment department at China Life, the controlling shareholder.

E Hua, who stepped down this time, had served as general manager since January 2023, for three years and five months. Before becoming general manager of China Life Anbao, he was general manager of China Life's equity investment department.

Scale and structure: low ranking in non-money-market assets, low equity share

On the company's homepage, the slogan reads: "Staying true to our original mission for 12 years, rewarding every trust." But the actual operating performance over the past three years and more has been less than ideal. As of the end of Q1 this year, the company's non-money-market fund scale was RMB 181.8 billion, ranking 30th in the industry.

The fund mix is dominated by bond funds, with equity funds making up a very small share. Stock funds are about RMB 10 billion and hybrid funds about RMB 5.6 billion.

As the former head of China Life's equity department, during E Hua's three years and five months as general manager, the overall scale of equity funds not only failed to rise but declined instead. Hybrid fund scale fell by as much as 50%.

Internal control and compliance: penalty records reveal risk exposure

During E Hua's tenure as general manager, China Life Anbao's equity funds not only underperformed and shrank in scale, but the company's internal controls also repeatedly exposed major loopholes.

In August 2025, according to an administrative penalty document from the Tianjin Securities Regulatory Bureau, fund manager Li Dan was penalized for insider trading and front-running.

Earlier, in December 2023, according to an administrative penalty document from the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau, the company's head of the separately managed account investment department Hu Wenbiao was penalized for illegal stock trading and market manipulation.

Governance and personnel: a disconnect between formality and marketization

Despite these problems, E Hua still returned to the controlling shareholder and entered the leadership team for further reuse. It is understood that in the day-to-day work of China Life Anbao, meetings and paperwork are quite excessive. In the company's performance assessment system, the requirement to make money for holders has not been placed where it should be, which deviates significantly from the China Securities Regulatory Commission's requirement for high-quality development.

Over the past three years and more, the controlling shareholder has sent many people to the company, occupying important positions, while the hard, dirty work has mostly still been recruited from the market. This has sharply reduced the company's marketization level and seriously weakened its investment research and sales capabilities.

Looking back: changes in market-oriented hiring and governance orientation

Before 2023, China Life Anbao was not like it is now; back then, the company was much more market-oriented. The first general manager, Zuo Jiqing, was relatively willing to stick to principles and protect corporate governance.

China Life Anbao was founded in October 2013 by Zuo Jiqing, then general manager of the fixed-income department at China Life Asset Management, and Shen Mengyu, then deputy general manager of the risk management and compliance department (acting general manager), among others.

After its establishment, it took the company 10 years to grow from nothing into a mid-sized fund company. By the end of 2022, its non-money-market fund scale was RMB 128.5 billion, ranking 31st in the industry. Stock funds were about RMB 7.6 billion and hybrid funds about RMB 12.8 billion.

At that time, the company had a high standard of professionalism, and the management team was mainly recruited through market-based hiring, giving it strong competitiveness.

But after the company grew its assets, some people among the controlling shareholder began eyeing important positions and demanded they be appointed by dispatch. Zuo Jiqing was unwilling to cooperate with such unreasonable demands and was under immense pressure for a time.

In January 2023, company general manager Zuo Jiqing, chief supervisor Shen Mengyu, and fixed-income investment director Dong Ruiqian, among others, left for "personal reasons." After Changning State-owned Assets took control of Chunhou Fund, in January 2026 Zuo Jiqing and Shen Mengyu became general manager and deputy general manager of Chunhou Fund respectively.

Viewpoint and takeaway: from "broken filters" back to operations and marketization

Over the past three years and more, the filter around China Life Anbao has shattered, E Hua and others lived their butterfly dreams, while the company's first-generation founders such as Zuo Jiqing and Shen Mengyu went through a phoenix-like rebirth.

In real life, some people still can't tell dreams from reality. Some state-owned enterprise cadres work in a company for many years yet still can't transform into competent business managers. They live in a butterfly dream for a long time and would rather stay drunk than wake up.

The article hopes China Life Anbao will seriously study and understand the essence of "development is the hard truth," focus on operations, and speak with business results rather than fall into the swamp of formalism. The company should quickly return to a market-oriented and international development track, abandon formalism, and not backslide by hiding from superiors and deceiving subordinates, wasting valuable development opportunities. The management team must truly put its mind to work and help the state-owned capital invested by the controlling shareholder preserve and grow in value, while helping holders obtain good returns.