Fund's honest words: China Life AMPM's GM change and internal control controversies
Blue Whale News June 29 (Reporter Qi Hezhong) — Insurance-backed fund company China Life AMPM has changed its general manager.
On June 23, the company announced that GM E Hua left due to work arrangements, and Liu Zhongjiang took over. Liu previously served as GM of the parent company China Life's direct investment department and fixed income investment department.
E Hua, who stepped down, had been GM since January 2023, just over three years and five months. Before joining China Life AMPM, he was the head of China Life's equity investment department.
On the company's homepage, the slogan reads: 'Upholding the original intention for 12 years, repaying every trust.' However, the company's actual operational performance over the past three years has been far from satisfactory. As of the end of Q1, the company's non-money-market fund scale was 181.8 billion yuan, ranking 30th in the industry. The fund types are predominantly bond funds, with a very small equity fund proportion. Among them, stock funds were about 10 billion yuan, and hybrid funds about 5.6 billion yuan.
As former China Life equity department head, E Hua during his 3-year-plus tenure saw equity fund scale overall not rise but fall. Specifically, hybrid fund scale fell by as much as 50%.
During E Hua's tenure, not only were the performance and scale of equity funds poor, but the company's internal controls also exposed significant loopholes.
In August 2025, according to the Tianjin Securities Regulatory Bureau's administrative penalty document, fund manager Li Dan was penalized for 'front-running' (rat trading).
Earlier, in December 2023, according to the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau's penalty, Hu Wenbiao, GM of the special account investment department, was penalized for illegal stock trading and market manipulation.
Despite the above issues, E Hua was not affected and returned to the parent company, entering leadership for further promotion. It is reported that China Life AMPM's daily work is plagued by excessive meetings and documents. In the company's performance evaluation, the requirement to generate returns for unit holders is not given due priority, deviating significantly from the China Securities Regulatory Commission's requirements for high-quality development.
Over the past three years, the parent company has assigned many people to China Life AMPM, occupying key positions, while the hard work mostly remains sourced from market hires. This led to a significant reduction in the company's market orientation, with severely insufficient investment research and sales capabilities.
Before 2023, China Life AMPM was not like this; it had a relatively high degree of marketization. The company's first GM, Zuo Jiqing, was relatively more willing to uphold principles and maintain corporate governance.
China Life AMPM was established in October 2013, co-founded by Zuo Jiqing (formerly GM of China Life Asset Management's fixed income department) and Shen Mengyu (deputy GM (acting) of the risk management and compliance department), among others.
After the company was established, it took 10 years to grow from scratch into a mid-sized fund company. By end of 2022, its non-money-market fund scale was 128.5 billion yuan, ranking 31st in the industry. Among these, stock funds were about 7.6 billion yuan, and hybrid funds about 12.8 billion yuan.
At that time, the company had high professionalism requirements, with management mainly selected from the market and possessing strong competitiveness.
However, after the company scaled up its assets, some from the parent company began to covet key positions, demanding to appoint their own people. Zuo Jiqing refused to cooperate with such unreasonable demands, enduring significant pressure.
In January 2023, GM Zuo Jiqing, Compliance Officer Shen Mengyu, and Fixed Income Investment Director Dong Ruiqian resigned for 'personal reasons.' After Changning State-Owned Capital entered Chunhou Fund, in January 2026, Zuo Jiqing and Shen Mengyu became GM and Deputy GM of Chunhou Fund respectively.
Over the past three years, China Life AMPM's filter shattered. E Hua and others fulfilled their 'butterfly dreams,' while the founding generation like Zuo Jiqing and Shen Mengyu experienced a phoenix nirvana.
In the story of Zhuang Zhou's dream of a butterfly, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he became a butterfly, carefree. Upon waking, he clearly found himself still Zhuang Zhou. Zhuang Zhou became a great sage because after waking, he could clearly know he was Zhuang Zhou, and the flying wings were borrowed from the butterfly.
In real life, some people cannot tell dreams from reality. Some state-owned enterprise cadres who have worked in various enterprises for many years still fail to transform into competent business operators, living long in a butterfly dream, wishing never to wake up.
We sincerely hope that China Life AMPM earnestly learns and internalizes the essence of 'Development is the absolute principle,' focusing on business operations and speaking with performance, rather than falling into the quagmire of formalism—being hard of mouth but slow in action. The company should promptly return to the track of marketization and internationalization, eliminate formalism, and not reverse the course by deceiving superiors and subordinates, missing valuable development opportunities. The company's management should truly focus their efforts on work, ensuring that state capital invested by the parent company appreciates and unit holders obtain good returns.
