HuaAn Fund, one of China’s well-known asset managers, has seen two senior equity fund managers abruptly clear their desks in less than a year, raising fresh questions about the company’s strategy, governance and ability to retain talent. On 19 January 2026 the firm announced that Jiang Qiu stepped down from all nine funds he managed; Jiang had built a decade-long track record and was widely promoted internally after a standout run with a flagship dynamic allocation fund. The departure followed a similar “clean-slate” exit by fellow equity veteran Li Xin in May 2025, breaking the usual industry pattern of staged transitions that give investors time to adjust.
Jiang’s career path illustrates the tension at the heart of the story. He joined HuaAn in 2011 after a period in sell-side research and rose to prominence after inheriting products in 2015. One fund — HuaAn Dynamic Flexible Allocation — became his signature performance driver, returning roughly 202% cumulatively over a 10-year span and delivering an annualised return near 11%, placing it among the top performers in its peer group. That success prompted aggressive product issuance from 2021 onwards: at its peak he ran nine funds and crossed the RMB 10bn management threshold on aggregate, even as several newly launched vehicles later suffered steep losses during market downturns.
The controversy is twofold. First, several products that Jiang managed were still in the red at the time of his exit, which critics say should have counted against continued product marketing and fresh launches. Second, his recent multi-year performance was steady rather than spectacular, a profile that sits awkwardly with HuaAn’s decision to turn him into a high-volume fund issuer. Market participants and some retail investors have flagged a “high-at-the-top, hollowing-out-below” impression: glamourised star managers at the centre while the active-equity franchise steadily shrinks.
HuaAn’s personnel churn pre-dates these two exits. Since 2022 the firm has lost multiple senior names across equity and fixed income: top equity managers have migrated to private funds or rival public managers, and a disciplinary-related departure dented confidence further. The aggregate numbers add context: HuaAn’s total assets under management grew year-on-year to about RMB 8136.6bn by end-2025, but its active mixed-fund book has halved from roughly RMB 1.84tn in 2021 to about RMB 844.3bn. That points to an organisational tilt away from the kinds of active, long-duration equity strategies that built many managers’ reputations.
For investors and industry watchers the signal is important beyond one firm. China’s asset-management sector is under pressure from fee compression, regulatory scrutiny, and rising competition from private funds and passive ETFs. Firms that over-expand a star manager’s product slate risk concentration, mismatched incentives and reputational exposure when markets turn. Abrupt “clean exits” — rather than phased handovers — amplify the operational risk for retail investors who must find replacements or tolerate unmanaged strategy shifts.
HuaAn now faces several clear tasks: stabilise the remaining investment teams, explain the governance rationale behind large product issuances and abrupt manager turnover, and shore up succession planning so retail and institutional clients are reassured. Rival houses and private managers stand to gain from the dislocation, while regulators and large institutional clients may demand clearer handover protocols and contingency plans. How HuaAn responds will matter for confidence across China’s public fund industry, where sponsor behaviour sets precedents for product labelling, manager incentives and investor protection.