On January 19, the 2023 "The 14th China Financial Innovation and Development Forum", sponsored by eBay Financial Media and Financial Management Magazine, and with Boyin Wealth Management Co., Ltd. as a strategic partner, was successfully held at the Xinyuan Hotel in Beijing, Beijing, China. With the theme of "Gathering Momentum and Innovation, Walking to the Light", this forum invited financial regulatory authorities, leaders of industry associations, and senior executives of the asset management industry to conduct in-depth research on hot topics such as wealth management and asset allocation in the new era.
In the morning session, Zhou Junheng, assistant general manager of Guohua Xingyi Asset Management, comprehensively analyzed the difficulties and challenges faced by the asset management industry on the current economic situation.
Opportunities and challenges faced by the asset management industry
Regarding the opportunities for the development of the asset management industry, Zhou Junheng pointed out that for the first time, the new regulations put various types of licensed asset management companies, including insurance asset management, into a system of rules to regulate, so the competition among asset management institutions has become more intense. With the development of China's economy and society and the improvement of residents' income level, the customer base of the wealth management market continues to expand and diversify, and the wealth management market continues to expand, so that high-quality asset management institutions can stand out and gain a large market share.
In contrast, the asset management industry has also faced considerable challenges in recent years. Zhou Junheng said that looking at the world, the international community is facing geopolitical risks such as the Russia-Ukraine war and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, economic globalization has encountered phased twists and turns, and the domestic market is also facing a slow recovery after the epidemic, and the real estate market also needs to find the direction and positioning under the new cycle. Therefore, finding high-quality and suitable assets with matching returns and controllable risks has become an important task for asset management companies, and it is also a lot of pressure at present.
Based on the challenges faced by the asset management industry, Zhou Junheng believes that the situation should be broken from two aspects: first, strengthen investment research capabilities and macro analysis, and do a good job in credit mining; The second is to grasp the essence of high-quality development and green development. An important feature of high-quality development is to encourage technological innovation and industrial upgrading, therefore, we should focus on tracking assets in the fields of new energy, industrial data, and some hard-core science and technology, and seize investment opportunities, which is also the embodiment of financial services for the real economy.
Create a competitive differentiator
In the context of large-scale asset management, asset management institutions can only find their own positioning and create differentiated competitive advantages by fully understanding their own resource endowment, development stage, historical accumulation, customer availability and matching. At the same time, it should also be deeply recognized that the core of asset management institutions is to do a good job in the construction of investment and research systems, and should always put it in the position of "top priority" of their own development.
Zhou Junheng believes that there are three specific aspects: one is the construction of financial talent team; the second is the construction of the investment research system and internal control system; The third is to establish a high-quality customer service system, take "customer needs" as the service orientation, and improve the customer service experience.
For insurance asset management institutions, the entrusted management of insurance funds is the source and starting point, as well as the core positioning. In the process of long-term service of insurance funds, insurance asset management institutions have accumulated rich experience in long-term fund management, large-scale asset allocation, long-term asset creation and absolute return acquisition, as well as multi-asset portfolio management, and have formed their own distinctive characteristics and significant advantages. In the current market environment of unified supervision and competition of large asset management, insurance asset management institutions are based on their own advantages and characteristics, through the issuance of portfolio products and other means, to attract "third-party funds" other than insurance funds, and accelerate the development of specialization and marketization.
Zhou Junheng introduced that as an industry newcomer who originated in the opportunity period of transformation and upgrading of large asset management, Guohua Xingyi Asset Management has been growing and growing since its establishment in May 2021 with the entrusted management of the investment assets of Guohua Life, the controlling shareholder, as the starting point, and following the professional and market-oriented business ideas. Up to now, the company's total assets under management have reached 300 billion yuan, an increase of more than 300% from the end of 2022. The company's tripartite market-oriented business has developed rapidly, with a scale of more than 220 billion yuan in just over a year after its start, attracting more than 100 institutional investors to actively invest.
The asset management industry presents new models and new business formats
In fact, insurance asset management institutions are more likely to pursue stability, mainly by combining the mature model of the asset management industry with the characteristics of insurance funds. With the development of the industry, asset management institutions have made useful explorations in the field of equity investment, and can lay out projects with development potential in advance.
Zhou Junheng pointed out that in the past two years, the scale of asset-backed plans issued by insurance asset management has grown rapidly, and some insurance asset management companies have also participated in the issuance of public REITs. In addition, the investment of insurance funds in major national projects has also achieved good performance, such as insurance funds invested more than 10 billion yuan in the construction of Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway, which has achieved profitability, which has not only promoted the construction of major national infrastructure, but also brought stable investment income to insurance funds.
Regarding the future development of the asset management industry, Zhou Junheng said, "As long as we continue to improve the ability to grasp structural opportunities under the new development pattern, the ability to balance short-term fluctuations and medium and long-term returns, as well as the ability to identify, respond to and dispose of risks under the emerging industries, the asset management industry will be able to give full play to the asset allocation capabilities of financial institutions, promote the benign interaction between finance and the real economy, and bring stable returns to investors." ”