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GF Fund for 18 years: customer-centered, welcoming the era of funds

Date: 2021-08-05 Source: China Securities Journal

  The era of Chinese public funds is coming.

  The latest data disclosed by the Asset Management Association of China shows that the scale of China's public offering funds has now exceeded 23 trillion yuan. Looking back to 2016 when the public funds industry just turned 18 and the scale was still less than 10 trillion, and it only took 5 years to surpass the accumulation of the past 18 years.

  Compared with overseas markets, the results are even more impressive. In recent years, the scale of China's public funds has gradually surpassed Japan and Australia, and has leapt to the top of the Asia-Pacific market. Take Japan, which is more representative in the overseas market, as an example. Its public funds have a history of more than half a century. According to data from CICC, the total size of Japanese public funds is 125 trillion yen (approximately 7.4 trillion yuan), China's leading advantage has become increasingly prominent.

  Since 2021, the boom momentum of public funds has not changed. In the first half of the year alone, the scale of public funds has increased by more than 3 trillion yuan.

  In line with the trend of developed markets such as the United States and Japan, market institutionalization and fund top companies dominating effect have become the new ecology of the A-share market. According to the latest data in the second quarter report of the fund, there are 37 fund companies with a scale of 100 billion yuan in non-monetary financial management, and the total scale is close to 80% of the total industry; there are 32 fund companies with a management scale of more than 200 billion yuan in total. The scale of management exceeds 80% of the industry's total; the total scale of TOP20 fund companies has reached 15 trillion, and the management scale of public funds of three fund companies has exceeded one trillion, and GF Fund is one of them.

  GF Fund, which ushered in its 18-year-old coming-of-age ceremony on August 5, 2021, had a public funds of over one trillion yuan at the end of the first half of the year, and a non-monetary financial management public funds of 622.2 billion yuan, of which the average monthly scale of non-monetary financial management public offerings in the second quarter reached 598.8 billion yuan, both hit a record high, ranking among the top three in the industry.

  Behind every jump in the scale figures is an ever-increasing customer base. As of the end of the first half of the year, GF Fund has served nearly 112 million customers in the 18 years since its establishment, which means that one out of every 13 Chinese citizens may be a GF Fund customer. The mission is on the shoulder, and the responsibility is like a mountain. How to meet the surging fund era?

  Wang Fan, General Manager of GF Fund, said that only by truly focusing on customers, firming the strategic development direction, continuously improving investment capabilities, and continuously improving products and services, can we meet the increasingly diversified wealth management needs of investors. At the same time, fund companies should insist on repaying the society with responsibility, be a good corporate citizen, and contribute more to the harmonious development of society.

  Customer-centric, enhance investors' sense of gain

  Those who do not seek forever, do not seek for a while. Looking back on its 18-year development history, GF Fund has always adhered to strategic guidance, experienced three strategic transformations, and four development stages: from building an active equity investment brand, promoting development with performance, to improving all-round investment capabilities, gradually enriching business categories, and then building complete product suppliers and asset allocation experts, and then build active investment capabilities as the core, focus on solving new strategic goals of solutions.

  In the latest strategic plan of GF Fund, the core is the "customer-centric" business system that is being built.

  How to practice "customer-centric"? GF Fund builds its business system from three perspectives: Firstly, it implements the concept of “starting from customer needs and creating value for customers” from top to bottom, attaches importance to customer-oriented business indicators, and will deepen the company culture with customers as the center; Secondly, it focuses on customer needs, to improve the business capabilities of product management and service throughout the entire process, and to provide customers with better asset management services; Thirdly, it is to optimize the business process along the "customer journey", and optimize the customer experience as much as possible through the technological empowerment of the entire process.

  Taking the improvement of customer experience as an example, GF Fund adheres to its mid-to long-term performance orientation, strengthens product style management and investment process management, maintains style stability, and prevents investment risks. It aims to integrate financial engineering technology into the whole process of investment management, conduct regular follow-up and evaluation of investment behavior, examine whether investors have achieved the integration of knowledge and action, and supervise the stability and continuity of their style; regularly conduct performance evaluation and analysis of investment portfolios to help investors continue to improve investment concepts and methods, and enhance the ability to obtain alpha in a specific style; give higher weight to long-term performance in the assessment, and guide investors to adhere to the investment style. In terms of risk control, a top-down management mechanism has also been established to strengthen the identification and control of risks through a more balanced portfolio of positions, in-depth research and continuous tracking of individual stocks and securities. As for the current trend of obvious top companies dominating effects of fund products, GF Fund is also constantly exploring and improving effective models for managing large funds, improving management quality, hoping to give investors a better profit experience and enhance investors' sense of gain.

  Strengthen active management competitiveness and focus on cultivating solutions

  After 18 years of hard work and steady progress, GF Fund has grown into a large fund company with complete business qualifications, diversified investment styles and leading industry positions, and has formed outstanding core competitiveness in active management.

  By end of the first half of 2021, the fund’s regular report data shows that since the establishment of GF Fund, it has made a total of 233.1 billion yuan in profits for investors and a cumulative dividend of 113.4 billion yuan; it has won 136 awards among four authoritative awards in the public fund industry (Golden Bull Award, Star Fund Award), Golden Fund Award and Morningstar Award), 16 times won the Golden Bull Fund Company level awards, also getting awarded for active equity, fixed income, overseas investment and other aspects. According to the data of the Galaxy Securities Fund Research Center, in the past 17 years that can be counted, the active management rate of return of GF Fund's stock investment reached 2071%, and the annualized rate of return was 19.85%, ranking 3/26.

  History illuminates the future, and there is no end to the journey. As the pace of China's financial opening up has accelerated, the channels for public funds to invest in overseas markets have become more diversified. Overseas investment management institutions with a longer history are also actively exploring the Chinese market and competing with domestic asset management institutions.

  Facing the increasingly internationalized capital market, GF Fund still insists on taking active management as the core, and continues to strengthen the building of professional investment capabilities. Practicing the concept of long-term value investment, focusing on shaping a high-quality research system, creating an investment team with a clear style, with excellent investment performance and rich product supply, continuously satisfying customers' continuous upgrading and increasingly diversified investment needs, and striving to achieve it for customers long-term, stable and sustainable return on investment.

  With the rapid increase in the number of domestic public fund products and the upgrading of investors' demand for asset allocation and one-stop investment, GF Fund has also accelerated the innovation of products and services, and strived to provide investors with solutions such as FOF and investment advice.

  GF Fund began to proactively promote the cultivation of multi-asset, multi-regional, and multi-strategy investment capabilities in 2013. Since then, the first to establish an asset allocation department in the industry, through the introduction of external elite talents and independent training, built an investment team with diverse backgrounds, multi-dimensional research perspectives, and rich practical experience. After eight years of hard work, it has multi-asset, multi-field, and multi-strategy asset allocation capabilities. A third-party evaluation agency said that the historical performance of many FOF public offering products under the GF Fund reflects the characteristics of robust style and outstanding risk-to-reward ratio. In April 2021, when the market is relatively quiet, the GF Core Optimal Six-month Holding Period Hybrid Fund (FOF) issued by GF Fund set a new record for the scale of new domestic FOF issuance.

  In June 2021, with the accumulation of experience in FOF and other asset allocation businesses, rich product reserves and good historical performance, GF Fund was approved to conduct fund investment advisory business on a pilot basis. GF Fund stated that in the future, the development of the company’s investment advisory business will be guided by customer needs, deeply explore and understand customer needs, and provide customers with tailor-made financial planning and round-the-clock asset allocation services, hoping to effectively improve customer profitability experience, to enhance the customer's sense of gain in financial management, and to realize the positive cycle of customer value and industry value.

  Practicing social responsibility and demonstrating corporate responsibility

  As a public fund company serving the financial needs of the general public, GF Funds while strictly fulfilling its fiduciary duties and practicing inclusive finance, insists on repaying the society with responsibilities and contributing institutional professional strength to the harmonious development of society.

  In order to continue to carry out public welfare undertakings professionally, the GF Fund initiated the establishment of the Guangdong GF Fund Public Welfare Foundation at the end of 2018. Relying on the foundation's professional platform, GF Fund actively responds to the call of the country to support education development in underdeveloped areas and help children pursue a better future by focusing on the main line of promoting education and helping students and helping the weak.

  The youth is wise, the country is strong; the youth is strong, the country is prosperous. GF Fund has always been concerned about the growth and development of young people, and has taken education and public welfare as the focus of GF Fund's public welfare work. Based on the needs of educational subjects in different stages of basic education, quality improvement, and professional development, GF Fund has established a multi-level and multi-dimensional education charity donation system. The company initiated the "GF Fund Jufu Building Dream Education Charity Plan" and "GF Fund Reading Promotion Support Plan" and other educational public welfare projects, which have provided educational resources and spirit to nearly 50 schools across the country and nearly 10,000 students in underdeveloped areas, building the ability to see and welcome the future.

  In the recent extreme heavy rainfall in Henan Province and severe floods in many places, GF Fund donated 2 million yuan to help Henan to fully support the disaster relief and post-disaster reconstruction work in the areas affected by the heavy rains in Henan. Since the beginning of 2021, GF Fund has donated a total of nearly 13.5 million yuan to support education, education, poverty alleviation, epidemic fighting, flood relief and other projects.

  The tide is flat and both sides are broad, and the wind is hanging with a sail. The route for the high-quality development of the capital market has been clear, and the giant wheel of public funds is riding on the wind. Standing at the starting point of the new journey, looking to the future, GF Fund will never forget its original intention, keep its mission in mind, live up to its professionalism, return trust with responsibility, and forge ahead towards a leading all-round asset management company worthy of entrustment. A more high-spirited attitude and a more professional level to serve the public's financial needs and the development of the real economy, and make unremitting efforts to realize the people's yearning for a better life.