Since Cai Songsong, a former top fund manager, was involved in bribery, the moral hazard of fund managers has become an increasingly concerned topic for investors.
If a fund company loses money simply because of environmental problems, it may be forgiven. But if you step on thunder frequently, you have to be questioned whether there is a moral hazard.
China Merchants Fund, frequently stepping on thunder
When it comes to fund thunder, China Merchants Fund must be on the list.
At the end of 2023, Cheng Lixin, chairman of the A-share company Hengrun Co., Ltd., was criminally detained for insider trading, which led to three consecutive declines in Hengrun Co., Ltd.
Judging from the institutional position data, SPDB AXA Fund held the largest number of shares at that time, with 9 products holding 7.86 million shares of Hengrun shares, accounting for 49.8% of the shares.
In addition, three funds under China Merchants Fund bought Hengrun shares in the third quarter of 2023, holding 663,900 shares before the company's collapse.
Although the absolute amount of Hengrun shares bought by China Merchants Fund is not too much, the problems exposed are obvious: I just bought it in this quarter, and it will thunder in the next quarter, and there will be three falling limits, which makes the outside world think?
Before this, China Merchants Fund stepped on the thunder:
In 2014, China Merchants Anrun Capital Guaranteed Mixed Fund stepped on Zhangzidao, which was once the fund that held the most Zhangzidao in addition to insurance funds.
In the third quarter of 2018, Shanghai RAAS suffered a huge loss of nearly 2 billion yuan in stock speculation, and the stock price showed an extremely tragic 10 consecutive falling limits, and China Merchants Guoxi Biomedical Index Fund stepped on the thunder.
In August 2020, the trust products held by Tianan Property Insurance, a subsidiary of Xishui Co., Ltd., defaulted when they expired, Xishui Co., Ltd. continued to fall to the limit, and China Merchants Fund stepped on the thunder again.
Buying liquor wildly and facing huge losses
China Merchants Fund is jointly established by China Merchants Bank and China Merchants Securities, with the former holding 55% of the shares and the latter holding 45% of the shares. Therefore, China Merchants Fund has a strong bank-based fund style, that is, it has invested in a large number of fixed-income funds.
For example, China Merchants Industrial Bond Fund and China Merchants Anhua Bond Fund are all large-scale funds with a scale of about 20 billion. In addition, there are a number of bond funds with a scale of more than 10 billion.
Among the medium and high-risk funds of China Merchants Fund, that is, equity, hybrid and index funds, the largest fund is China Merchants CSI Liquor Index Fund, which currently has a class A scale of about 42.4 billion yuan and a class C scale of about 9.5 billion.
Here is a simple science popularization, Class A funds are charged a subscription fee when subscribing, and they are charged at one time when subscribing; There is no subscription fee when subscribing for Class C funds, but a withdrawal fee will be charged every day. Class A funds are suitable for long-term investors; Class C funds are suitable for short-term investors. In general, Class A funds are larger than Class C funds.
Among the medium and high-risk funds of China Merchants Fund, the second largest is China Merchants Guoxi Biomedical Index Fund, which currently has a class A scale of 8.5 billion yuan and a class C scale of 1.85 billion yuan.
It seems that China Merchants Fund likes to "drink alcohol and take medicine" very much.
Liquor and medicine are the long-term cattle industries of A-shares in the past few years, and countless investors have made a lot of money buying liquor stocks and pharmaceutical stocks, and these two industries are also the objects of heavy positions in public funds.
Perhaps it is path dependence, among the medium and high-risk funds of China Merchants Fund, the largest ones are liquor and pharmaceutical index funds.
It is impossible for any industry to grow sustainably, and liquor and medicine have fallen miserably in the past two years, which is the best explanation.
China Merchants CSI Liquor Index Fund, the top four holdings are Shanxi Fenjiu, Wuliangye, Kweichow Moutai and Luzhou Laojiao, accounting for 16.04%, 15.51%, 14.61% and 13.96% respectively, and these four stocks account for about 60% of the total funds of this fund.
These four companies are also among the top four liquor companies by market capitalization. According to the stock of large companies, this is the idea of China Merchants CSI Liquor Fund.
As a result, China Merchants CSI Liquor became the third largest shareholder of Shanxi Fenjiu, the first among all public funds, far ahead of Invesco Great Wall and E Fund, holding more than 34 million shares.
In the first quarter of this year, although China Merchants CSI Liquor reduced its position by more than 3.6 million shares, it was too large, and it still held nearly 3% of the total share capital of Shanxi Fenjiu.
As we all know, the news related to the recent sharp drop in the price of Kweichow Moutai has been constantly swiping the screen, and even some pawn shops have refused to accept Moutai.
Moutai, the most valuable liquor brand, is plummeting, and the price trend of other liquors can be imagined.
Taking Shanxi Fenjiu, the largest holding stock of China Merchants CSI Liquor, as an example, the stock has fallen by more than 10% so far in the second quarter, so the China Merchants CSI Liquor, which bought the most in the public offering, lost the most.
So far in the second quarter, the trends of the four major heavy stocks of China Merchants CSI Liquor are: Shanxi Fenjiu fell 10.5%, Wuliangye fell 14.3%, Kweichow Moutai fell 11.1%, and Luzhou Laojiao fell 18.5%.
As a result, China Merchants CSI Liquor has fallen by more than 13% in the last three months, far underperforming the -1.92% of the CSI 300.
China Merchants CSI Liquor, the performance of the three months in the past three months is more than 2,500 among more than 2,700 funds of the same kind, "stable" in the bottom 10%.
Looking at the longer term, China Merchants CSI Liquor has fallen by more than 20% in the past year, by more than 31% in the past two years, and by more than 39% in the past three years!
Because the China Merchants CSI Liquor Fund is too large and its holdings are too concentrated, this fund is one of the most affected when the liquor industry is in a big downward cycle.
As long as other funds smash liquor stocks, China Merchants CSI Liquor will suffer. Now, basically everyone can see that liquor is a medium and long-term downward cycle, and many funds are resolutely selling liquor, and China Merchants CSI Liquor will change from the previous "full warehouse of liquor to win" to "full warehouse of liquor huge losses".
High-end liquor is undergoing a process of de-financialization and bubble-squeezing, and during this period, it may be a long bear road waiting for China Merchants CSI Liquor.
Medicine, new energy, the loss is even more heavy
The decline of China Merchants Guoxi Biomedical Index Fund is even worse, falling by more than 26% in the past year, and as high as 66.6% in the last three years, a full two-thirds of the decline!
Even if it has fallen so much, the fund still has a scale of 8.5 billion.
Some investors posted the yield of buying this fund in the stock bar, with a loss of 68.78%, denouncing its low level.
Hou Hao, the manager of this fund, also manages the China Merchants CSI New Energy Vehicle Index Fund, and he has lost more than 55% in less than three years after he has been in charge of this fund!
It's really very, very "cheating"!
In addition to these funds, Wang Jing of China Merchants Fund, because of the huge losses of funds such as China Merchants Jinan Growth Strict Selection Mixed Fund, was also questioned as taking over at a high level.
2021 is the highest year in the history of the stock prices of many liquor, medical, and new energy vehicle stocks, and these tracks can be said to be full of people three years ago.
China Merchants Fund took advantage of this enthusiasm and sold funds wildly, and many funds were issued at the high point of the market.
China Merchants Fund was a great success at that time, and the company's ranking in the public fund industry also rose rapidly. In 2022, China Merchants Fund will have a revenue of 5.757 billion yuan and a net profit of 1.813 billion yuan, ranking among the top 7 in the industry.
But now, because of its extremely poor performance and ranking at the bottom of the industry, China Merchants Fund has been severely criticized by the people, angrily accusing it of only knowing how to earn management fees, and getting a high salary no matter how much the people lose.
Intensive issuance of new funds at a high level, chasing track stocks at a high level, and it is natural for China Merchants Fund to suffer deep losses after a one-pass operation.
As of the end of the first quarter of this year, the scale of China Merchants Fund's equity and hybrid funds was 110.3 billion and 61.7 billion respectively, a large-scale reduction from 146.5 billion and 133.7 billion at the end of 2021.
China Merchants Fund, which has huge losses at every turn, is being abandoned by investors!