China Life AMPM General Manager Change: Review of Equity Performance and Internal Control Issues
Image source: Visual China
Blue Whale News, June 29 (Reporter Qi Hezhong) The general manager of insurance-affiliated fund company China Life AMPM has been replaced.
On June 23, the company announced that General Manager E Hua left due to work arrangements, and Liu Zhongjiang succeeded as general manager. Liu previously served as GM of the direct investment department and GM of the fixed income investment department of major shareholder China Life.
E Hua, who stepped down, had served as general manager since January 2023, for a total of three years and over five months. Before joining China Life AMPM, he was GM of China Life's equity investment department.
On the company's website homepage, the slogan reads: "Adhering to the original intention for 12 years, returning every trust." However, the company's actual operating performance over the past three-plus years has been less than satisfactory. As of Q1 this year, the company's non-money market fund scale was CNY 181.8 billion, ranking 30th in the industry. However, fund types were predominantly bond funds, with equity funds a very small portion: approximately CNY 10 billion in stock funds and CNY 5.6 billion in hybrid funds.
As former GM of China Life's equity department, E Hua saw equity fund scale overall not rise but fall during his three years and five months as general manager, with hybrid funds declining by as much as 50%.
During E Hua's tenure, not only did equity fund performance and scale underperform, but the company's internal controls also exposed significant vulnerabilities.
In August 2025, according to an administrative penalty document from the Tianjin Securities Regulatory Bureau, fund manager Li Dan was fined for "insider trading" (rat trading).
Earlier, in December 2023, according to a Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau penalty document, the company's private placement investment department GM Hu Wenbiao was fined for illegal stock trading and market manipulation.
Despite these issues, they did not affect E Hua's return to the major shareholder for further promotion. It is reported that in China Life AMPM's daily work, excessive meetings and paperwork are serious. In the company's performance evaluation system, the requirement to generate returns for fund holders has not been given due importance, deviating significantly from the CSRC's requirements for high-quality development.
Over the past three-plus years, the major shareholder has sent many people to occupy key positions, while the tough work is still mainly done by market hires. This has led to a significant reduction in the company's marketization level, resulting in serious deficiencies in research and sales capabilities.
Before 2023, China Life AMPM was not like this; back then, the company's marketization was relatively high. The first general manager, Zuo Jiqing, was relatively bold in upholding principles and maintaining corporate governance.
China Life AMPM was founded in October 2013, established by Zuo Jiqing (former general manager of China Life Asset Management's fixed income department) and Shen Mengyu (former deputy GM (presiding) of risk management and compliance department).
After establishment, China Life AMPM took 10 years to grow from nothing into a mid-sized fund company. By end of 2022, the company's non-money fund scale was CNY 128.5 billion, ranking 31st in the industry. Among them, stock funds were about CNY 7.6 billion and hybrid funds about CNY 12.8 billion.
At that time, the company had high requirements for professionalism, with management mainly selected from the market, giving it strong competitiveness.
However, after the company expanded its asset scale, some within the major shareholder began to covet key positions, demanding appointments by assignment. Zuo Jiqing was unwilling to comply and faced enormous pressure.
In January 2023, general manager Zuo Jiqing, inspector Shen Mengyu, and fixed income investment director Dong Ruiqian resigned for "personal reasons." After Changning State Assets took over Chunhou Fund, in January 2026, Zuo Jiqing and Shen Mengyu became general manager and deputy general manager of Chunhou Fund respectively.
Over the past three-plus years, China Life AMPM's filter shattered, E Hua and others realized their butterfly dreams, while first-generation founders like Zuo Jiqing and Shen Mengyu underwent a phoenix-like rebirth.
In the story of Zhuang Zhou dreaming of a butterfly, he dreamed he became a butterfly, very carefree. After waking, he found himself still Zhuang Zhou. Zhuang Zhou became a great sage because he knew clearly after the dream that he was Zhuang Zhou, and his flying wings were borrowed from the butterfly.
In real life, some people cannot distinguish between dreams and reality. Some state-owned enterprise cadres, after years of service, still cannot transform into competent business operators, living long in a butterfly dream, preferring to stay drunk rather than wake up.
We sincerely hope China Life AMPM can seriously study and understand the essence of "Development is the absolute principle," focus on company operations, and prove with operating results, without falling into the quagmire of formalism—active mouth, lazy body. The company should quickly return to the track of marketization and internationalization, abandon formalism, and not deceive superiors and subordinates to reverse progress, wasting precious development opportunities. The company's management should truly focus on work, ensure state-owned capital invested by the major shareholder maintains and increases value, and help fund holders achieve good returns.
