Fund Loyal Advice: Compliance and Operational Reflection Behind China Life Asset Management's CEO Change
Blue Whale News, June 29 (Reporter Qi Hezhong) - The CEO of insurance-affiliated fund company China Life Asset Management (CLAMP) has been replaced.
On June 23, the company announced that CEO E Hua had left due to work arrangements, with Liu Zhongjiang succeeding him. Liu previously served as general manager of the direct investment department and fixed income investment department of major shareholder China Life Insurance.
E Hua, who stepped down as CEO, had served in the role since January 2023, a period of three years and five months. Before becoming CEO of CLAMP, he was general manager of the equity investment department at China Life.
On the company's website, the promotional phrase reads: 'Adhering to the original intention for 12 years, repaying every trust.' However, the company's actual operating performance over the past three-plus years has been far from satisfactory. As of the end of the first quarter this year, the company's non-money market fund scale was 181.8 billion yuan, ranking 30th in the industry. However, the fund mix is mainly bond funds, with equity funds accounting for a very small portion. Among them, stock funds are about 10 billion yuan, and hybrid funds about 5.6 billion yuan.
As former general manager of China Life's equity department, E Hua saw the equity fund scale overall decline rather than rise during his three years and five months as CEO. Hybrid fund sizes fell by as much as 50%.
During E Hua's tenure, not only did the performance and scale of CLAMP's equity funds lag, but the company's internal controls also exposed significant 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.'
Earlier, in December 2023, according to an administrative penalty document from the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau, Hu Wenbiao, head of the proprietary account investment department, was penalized for illegal stock trading and market manipulation.
Despite these issues, E Hua returned to the major shareholder and entered leadership for further promotion. It is understood that in CLAMP's daily work, excessive meetings and paperwork are serious. In the company's assessment system, the requirement to make money for holders is not given an important place, which deviates significantly from the China Securities Regulatory Commission's requirements for high-quality development.
Over the past three-plus years, the major shareholder has sent many people to the company, occupying important positions, while the heavy lifting has mainly been left to market hires. This has led to a significant reduction in the company's marketization level, with severely insufficient investment research and sales capabilities.
Before 2023, CLAMP was not like this; its marketization level was quite high. The company's first CEO, Zuo Jiqing, was more willing to adhere to principles and maintain corporate governance.
CLAMP was founded in October 2013, established and founded by Zuo Jiqing, former general manager of the fixed income department of China Life Asset Management Company, and Shen Mengyu, former deputy general manager (presiding) of the risk management and compliance department.
After its establishment, CLAMP took 10 years to grow from scratch into a mid-sized fund company. By the end of 2022, the company's non-money market fund scale was 128.5 billion yuan, ranking 31st in the industry. Among them, stock funds were about 7.6 billion yuan, and hybrid funds about 12.8 billion yuan.
At that time, the company's demand for professionalism was high, and the management was mainly recruited from the market, with strong competitiveness.
However, after the company grew its asset scale, some people within the major shareholder began to covet some important positions, requesting appointments by assignment. Unwilling to cooperate with these unreasonable requests, Zuo Jiqing came under tremendous pressure.
In January 2023, CEO Zuo Jiqing, Inspector General Shen Mengyu, and Fixed Income Investment Director Dong Ruiqian resigned for 'personal reasons.' After Changning State-owned Assets took control of Chunhou Fund, in January 2026, Zuo Jiqing and Shen Mengyu respectively served as CEO and Deputy CEO of Chunhou Fund.
Over the past three-plus years, CLAMP's filter has shattered, and E Hua and others have realized their butterfly dreams, while the first generation founders like Zuo Jiqing and Shen Mengyu have undergone a phoenix nirvana.
In the story of Zhuang Zhou dreaming of a butterfly, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he became a butterfly, very comfortable! After waking up, he found himself clearly still Zhuang Zhou. The reason Zhuang Zhou could become a great wise man is that after waking up, he could clearly know he was Zhuang Zhou, while the flying wings in the dream were borrowed from the butterfly.
In real life, some people cannot distinguish between dream and reality. Some state-owned enterprise cadres have worked in their positions for many years but still cannot transform into competent business operators, living in a butterfly dream for a long time, willing to stay drunk rather than wake up.
We sincerely hope that CLAMP can seriously study and understand the connotation and essence of 'development is the hard truth,' focus on company operations, speak with operational performance, and not fall into the quagmire of formalism, with talk but little action. The company should return to the track of marketization and internationalization as soon as possible, eliminate formalism, and not open in reverse, deceiving superiors and subordinates, missing valuable development opportunities. The management should put their minds into work, ensure the preservation and appreciation of state-owned capital invested by major shareholders, and help fund holders obtain good returns.
