CIO suddenly resigns, and the head of supervision steps down! The general manager of the trillion-yuan Guolian An Fund holds two responsibilities at once!

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Source | JueJiao Finance

On March 28, Guolian Assets Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Guolian Assets”) announced that its Chief Information Officer (CIO), Huang Feng, left the company on March 26 for personal reasons, just a month after he officially took on the CIO role on February 25.

Meanwhile, in early March, Li Hua, the Inspector General who had been safeguarding the company’s compliance front line for more than 7 years, also retired upon reaching the retirement age, and the position would be temporarily filled by the General Manager, Tang Hua. Tang Hua was officially appointed General Manager of Guolian Assets in November 2024. With less than two years in the role, he is now also shouldering the company’s risk control responsibilities.

Against the backdrop of the management’s “sudden resignation,” Guolian Assets’ performance report for 2025 is not very encouraging. Operating revenue was 514 million yuan, down 12.3% year over year; net profit was 98 million yuan, down 29.5% year over year. In addition, in a market year when ETFs surged, the scale of Guolian Assets’ equity funds did not grow but instead shrank—from 32.75B yuan at the end of 2024 to 28.86B yuan at the end of 2025, a reduction of 3.89B yuan.

When the cameo of a “one-month CIO stint” intersects with the fierce competition in the asset management industry, Tang Hua—who has backgrounds with multiple institutions both inside and outside China—now holds two roles at once: General Manager and Inspector General. How will he place his moves to break the deadlock in this game?

1

A “one-month CIO stint,” with Tang Hua acting as Inspector General

The resume shows that Huang Feng holds a graduate degree and a master’s degree, has the qualification to practice as a securities investment fund professional, and is a Chinese national.

Huang Feng’s work experience spans multiple fields including technology, securities, asset management, and funds. He has accumulated extensive experience in information technology management. He previously served as an engineer at Microsoft’s Global Technology Center (Shanghai). Later, he moved among major brokerages and asset management institutions’ core technology and operations departments, serving in roles such as Project Manager in the Information Technology Management Department of Haitong Securities, Supervisor in the Information Technology Department of China Re Asset Management, Director of Information Technology in CICC Fund, Deputy General Manager of Operations, Assistant to the General Manager, and Assistant General Manager of the Asset Custody Department of Industrial Bank Securities.

Photo source: Canister Picture Library

On February 25, 2026, Guolian Assets appointed Huang Feng as Chief Information Officer. Before that, Huang Feng had served as the company’s Deputy Director of Operations and Assistant to the General Manager. However, only one month later, Huang Feng left the company in a hurry. Such a short executive tenure is relatively uncommon in the public fund industry and has also raised concerns from outside observers about the company’s internal governance and talent stability.

Yu Fenghui, an invited researcher at the China Finance Think Tank, said, “Huang Feng’s rapid departure as CIO of Guolian Assets reflects that the company’s decision-making for top management positions may be rushed. Such short-term changes not only affect the company’s stability, but may also have a negative impact on team morale. In addition, frequent changes at the top are not conducive to the continuity of the company’s strategic planning and the effectiveness of implementation.”

Wang Zhaojiang, Executive Dean of the Investment & Research Institute at Beishan Changcheng Fund, said, “This is more likely due to personal reasons or a mismatch in fit, and its short-term impact on the company is limited. Looking ahead, the stability of the CIO role and the continuity of the IT strategy still need to be monitored over the long term.”

Changes at the top have not stopped there. In early March, Li Hua, the Inspector General who had served at Guolian Assets for many years, left the position due to retirement upon reaching the retirement age.

The resume shows that Li Hua holds a master’s degree in economics. He has stood on the podium of the Department of Economic Management at Peking University to teach. Later, he shifted into the financial sector and moved through multiple roles. He served as Deputy General Manager of the Fund Department at Guangdong Nanfang Financial Services Co., Ltd., General Manager of the Planning and Development Department at Guangdong Overseas Chinese Trust & Investment Co., Ltd., and General Manager of Guangzhou Dingyuan Investment & Financial Advisory Co., Ltd. He also simultaneously served as Chairman of Guangdong Nanfang Credit Evaluation Co., Ltd., General Manager of the South China Business Headquarters at Tianyi Securities, and other roles.

Photo source: Canister Picture Library

After entering the public funds industry, Li Hua successively served at Rongtong Fund as Director of the Supervisory Audit & Compliance Department and as a Supervisor. He then took on the role of Inspector General at Xinjiang Qianhai United Fund, gradually strengthening the foundation of compliance management step by step. On September 19, 2018, Li Hua joined Guolian Assets and served as Inspector General for a tenure of seven years.

After Li Hua left, Guolian Assets appointed Tang Hua, the General Manager, to take over as Inspector General. Tang Hua officially became General Manager of Guolian Assets in November 2024, replacing Wang Zheng, who retired upon reaching the retirement age. To date, he has been in the role for less than 2 years. Unlike the previous General Manager Wang Zheng, who was appointed through the major shareholder—Pacific Asset Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Pacific Asset”)—Tang Hua has worked backgrounds with multiple institutions both within and outside China.

The work history shows that Tang Hua previously served as a financial consultant at the U.S. Prudential Securities Group, a registered investment manager at Meilian Securities, and a banking consultant at a Swiss bank, among other positions. In the public funds field, Tang Hua previously served as General Manager of the International Business Department at Bank of China Fund Management Co., Ltd., General Manager and Deputy Chairman at Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Credit Suisse Asset Management (International) Co., Ltd., Chief Executive Officer for Greater China at Finda Group, and Executive President at Fanda Investment Management (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., among other roles.

Yu Fenghui said, “When the Inspector General is delegated by the General Manager, this may be out of considerations such as cost control and maintaining the stable operation of the compliance line in the short term. Tang Hua has a market-oriented background, and delegating oversight of the compliance line to him may help introduce a more flexible and efficient management model. However, at the same time, there is also the risk that he is unfamiliar with his professional area. In the long run, this arrangement needs to place more emphasis on balancing compliance with business development, to avoid ignoring risk controls in pursuit of performance.”

2

Revenue and net profit shrink; funds in the fixed-income category make up more than 60%

Guolian Assets, established in April 2003, is the first China-foreign joint venture fund company in Mainland China that was approved to be set up. Its shareholders originally were Guotai Junan Securities and Germany’s Allianz Group, holding 51% and 49% respectively. In 2018, after Guotai Junan Securities obtained regulatory approval, it transferred all its equity holdings to Pacific Asset Management under China Pacific Insurance (Group).

According to China Taibao’s 2025 annual report, Guolian Assets’ 2025 performance report is not ideal. Operating revenue was 514 million yuan, down 12.3% year over year; net profit was 98 million yuan, down 29.5% year over year.

In 2025, Guolian Assets’ asset management scale increased by 3.9% to 143.28B yuan, mainly relying on the year-over-year growth of money market product scale by 64.19% to 37.01B yuan. Besides that, Guolian Assets’ equity-type products totaled 38.54B yuan, down 15.01% year over year; hybrid-type products were 6.62B yuan, up 7.52% year over year; and bond-type products were 61.01B yuan, down 5.44% year over year.

Photo source: Canister Picture Library

What is worth noting is that among Guolian Assets’ 23 equity products, 12 are ETF products—so the decline in ETF products has also caused the decline in equity-type products.

2025 can be described as a “surge year” for China’s ETF market. According to the “Shanghai Stock Exchange ETF Industry Development Report (2026)” released on February 6, by the end of 2025, the number of ETFs listed on domestic exchanges reached 1,381, with a total scale of 6.02 trillion yuan, up 61% year over year. Among them, the Shanghai market had 797 listed ETFs, with the latest scale of 4.2 trillion yuan; total trading value for the year reached 61 trillion yuan.

Against this backdrop, Guolian Assets’ ETF product allocation shrank by nearly 3.9 billion yuan. Data from Wind shows that the company’s ETF scale decreased from 60.2k yuan at the end of 2024 to 42k yuan at the end of 2025. By the end of March 2026, it further fell to 610k yuan.

It is also worth mentioning that among Guolian Assets’ ETF scale of less than 30 billion yuan, the Guolian Assets CSI All-Share Semiconductor ETF, established in 2019, alone accounts for 20 billion yuan. This fund is Guolian Assets’ absolute flagship product and one of the most representative ETFs in the semiconductor sector across the entire market. According to the 2025 annual report, 364.1k households hold this fund; the share of institutional investors is 32.9%, and the share of individual investors is 67.91%.

Wind data shows that since the establishment of the Guolian Assets CSI All-Share Semiconductor ETF, the return rate has been 182.78%, with an annualized return rate of 16.25%. Its ranking among peers is 18 out of 547. In 2025, the fund’s profit was 9.27 billion yuan, up 43.1% year over year. The fund holdings disclosed in the 2025 annual report show that the fund’s top holding is Cambricon (688256.SH), with a holding share of 8.82%.

Photo source: Wind

In addition, the remaining 11 ETF products of Guolian Assets have a combined scale of less than 10 billion yuan. By the end of March 2026, the Guolian Assets CSI Consumer 50 ETF, the Guolian Assets CSI A500 Enhanced Strategy ETF, and the Guolian Assets ChiNext Technology ETF all had scales of under 32.75B yuan—28.86B yuan, 27.21B yuan, and 364.1k yuan, respectively.

In August 2025, the Guolian Assets CSI New Materials Theme ETF was already liquidated. The fund was established in May 2021, with an initial issuance scale of 299 million yuan. The fund closely tracks the CSI New Materials Theme Index. It was established at the peak of that sector’s行情; after the index hit a new high in August 2021, it then entered a pattern of range-bound decline. By the last operating day, the fund’s scale was only about 0.12 billion yuan.

What is worth paying attention to is that Guolian Assets’ second-largest ETF product by scale is the Guolian Assets CSI 300 ETF. As of March, its scale was 44M yuan. This product has a situation where a single institutional holder owns more than 90%.

The 2025 annual report shows that the total fund shares of this product were 619 million shares, and institutional investors held 615 million shares, accounting for 99.33%. Among the top ten holders, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited—Guolian Assets CSI 300 Exchange-Traded Open-Ended Index Securities Investment Fund (Investment Fund Link) (short for “Guolian Assets CSI 300 ETF Link”) held 611 million shares, accounting for 98.71%. Meanwhile, within the Guolian Assets CSI 300 ETF Link, the number of holders was 17,506, and the share held by institutional investors was 97.47%.

Photo source: Fund announcements

A similar situation also appears in the Guolian Assets CSI ESG300 ETF, but that product is smaller, with a scale of only 46M yuan. According to the 2025 annual report, the number of holders is 163, and institutional investors’ share of holdings is 97.04%. China Pacific Life Insurance Co., Ltd.—Dividend—Personal Dividend Account holds 50.6689 million shares, accounting for 95.56%.

Photo source: Fund announcements

In this regard, Yu Fenghui pointed out, “For some products, the single-institution holding proportion is too high, revealing a problem in the company’s customer structure—reliance on a small number of major customers and a lack of diversified customer base. This situation increases the company’s vulnerability when the market fluctuates, especially when major customers decide to redeem shares, which may lead to liquidity stress and even liquidation risk. Therefore, expanding the company’s ability to reach individual customers and diversified institutional customers is an urgent issue that needs to be solved.”

Wang Zhaojiang said, “For some products, the proportion of single-institution holdings is too high, which creates liquidity pressure caused by large redemptions. But ETFs have a subscription and redemption mechanism, so the risk of liquidation is low. Guolian Assets’ overall managed scale is about 140 billion yuan; concentration in a single product does not represent the company’s overall risk.”

Tang Hua, who previously worked at Fanda Group, has rich international asset management experience. Previously, he told the media, “Fanda, as a boutique company, has two major characteristics: one is being a global leader in passive management Smart Beta, and the other is a long-term commitment to active management quantitative fundamental investing… Bringing these two relative technical advantages into China’s public fund market to achieve localization will surely reflect value to Chinese investors and the entire market.”

Given the current situation of the ETF product line, whether he will introduce overseas mature Smart Beta strategies, or leverage his foreign background to strengthen synergy with the overseas shareholder (Allianz) on cross-border ETFs, is the focus of market attention. Do you think highly of Guolian Assets improving its market competitiveness through ETFs? Let’s discuss in the comments section.

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