China Life AMC CEO Change: Filter Shattered and Internal Control Controversy
China Life Asset Management Company (China Life AMC), an insurance-affiliated fund company, has changed its CEO.
On June 23, the company announced that CEO E Hua left due to work arrangements, and Liu Zhongjiang took over as CEO. Liu Zhongjiang previously served as general manager of the direct investment department and general manager of the fixed income investment department of the major shareholder, China Life Insurance.
E Hua, who stepped down as CEO, had served since January 2023, a total of three years and five months. Before becoming CEO of China Life AMC, he was the general manager of the equity investment department of China Life.
On the company's official website homepage, the promotional slogan is: "Adhering to the original intention for 12 years, rewarding every trust." However, actual operating performance over the past three-plus years has been unsatisfactory. As of the end of the first quarter this year, the company's non-money market fund scale was 181.8 billion yuan, ranking 30th in the industry. However, the fund types are predominantly bond funds, with equity funds accounting for a very small portion. Among them, stock funds are about 10 billion yuan, and hybrid funds about 5.6 billion yuan.
As former general manager of China Life's equity department, during E Hua's three years and five months as CEO, the scale of equity funds overall not only did not rise but fell. Among them, hybrid fund scale declined by up to 50%.
During E Hua's tenure as CEO, not only did China Life AMC's equity fund performance and scale lag, but the company's internal controls also successively exposed significant loopholes.
In August 2025, an administrative penalty document from the Tianjin Securities Regulatory Bureau showed that the company's fund manager Li Dan was punished for "insider trading."
Earlier, in December 2023, an administrative penalty document from the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau showed that the company's head of the special account investment department, Hu Wenbiao, was punished for illegal stock trading and market manipulation.
Despite the above problems, relevant personnel still returned to the major shareholder and received further promotion. The article points out that in the daily work of China Life AMC, "mountains of documents and seas of meetings" are relatively serious. In the company's performance assessment system, the requirement to make money for holders has not been placed in its proper position, which deviates from regulatory requirements for high-quality development.
The article also mentions that over the past three-plus years, the major shareholder has dispatched many people to the company, occupying important positions, while the hard and tedious work is mainly done by market hires, resulting in a significant decline in the company's marketization level, affecting research and sales capabilities.
The article recalls that before 2023, China Life AMC had a relatively high degree of marketization. The company's first CEO, Zuo Jiqing, was relatively bold in upholding principles and maintaining corporate governance.
China Life AMC was established in October 2013, co-founded by Zuo Jiqing, former general manager of the fixed income department of China Life Asset Company, and Shen Mengyu, former deputy general manager (presiding) of the risk management and compliance department, among others.
After its establishment, China Life AMC took 10 years to grow from scratch into a medium-sized fund company. As of the end of 2022, the company's non-money market fund scale was 128.5 billion yuan, ranking 31st in the industry. Among them, stock funds were about 7.6 billion yuan, and hybrid funds about 12.8 billion yuan.
The article believes that at that time, the company had high professional requirements; the management was mainly selected from the market through hiring, with strong competitiveness.
However, as asset size grew, some people in the major shareholder began to covet certain important positions in the company, demanding appointments through assignment. The article states that Zuo Jiqing was unwilling to cooperate and once faced enormous pressure.
In January 2023, the company's CEO Zuo Jiqing, inspector Shen Mengyu, and fixed income investment director Dong Ruiqian left for "personal reasons." The article adds that after Changning State Capital took over Chunhou Fund, in January 2026, Zuo Jiqing and Shen Mengyu served as CEO and deputy CEO of Chunhou Fund respectively.
At the end of the article, a metaphor from Zhuang Zhou's dream of a butterfly is used: the article believes that over the past three-plus years, the "filter" of China Life AMC has shattered. Some have "realized the butterfly dream," while others have experienced "phoenix nirvana."
At the same time, the article hopes that China Life AMC will earnestly comprehend the essence and substance of "development is the hard truth," focus on operating performance, let performance speak, eliminate formalism, return to the marketization and internationalization track as soon as possible, and let the management truly concentrate on work, enhance the preservation and appreciation of state-owned capital, and help holders obtain good returns.
