China’s Ant-owned Tianhong loses top fund house crown to E Fund

China’s E Fund Management has dethroned billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group-owned Tianhong Asset Management as the largest fund house in the country.

Guangzhou-based E Fund had 1.39 trillion RMB (US$208.5 billion) of total assets as of March 2021, beating out Tianhong’s 1.21 trillion RMB, according to figures compiled by Shanghai-based investment consultancy Z-Ben Advisors and shared with Asia Asset Management.

According to Z-Ben, this is the “most notable change” in China’s mutual fund industry.

Tianhong has been the biggest fund house in China since 2014, when it launched the country’s first money market funds, which are integrated with Ant’s mobile payment platform, Alipay. With around 900 million users, Alipay is one of the most widely used payment platforms in China.

Meanwhile, Z-Ben’s figures show that China’s mutual fund assets as of March was 21.5 trillion RMB, a 30% jump from 16.5 trillion RMB a year ago, thanks to capital appreciation and robust fundraising activities.

Active equity/balanced funds were one of the best performing fund types, with assets up 10% to 6.1 trillion RMB and net inflows of 772 billion RMB in the 12 months to March 2021. It was primarily driven by the initial public offering market.

There were nearly 300 active equity/balanced fund listings in the first quarter of 2021, with combined fundraising of 850 billion RMB, according to Z-Ben. They represented around three-quarters of fund listings from January through March.

“A lot of momentum was built up in the second half of 2020 for active equity demand,” Z-Ben says, adding however, that new fundraising fell “dramatically” near the end of March as China’s stock market tumbled.

According to figures from Chinese data provider TX Investment Consulting, mutual funds suffered a net investment loss of 210.2 billion RMB in the first three months of the year after a 800 billion RMB gain in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Source: Z-Ben Advisors