On September 5th, Bank of China Fund Management announced a key leadership transition: Chen Weixing has been officially promoted from Chief Inspector and Deputy Executive President to Executive President, effective that same day. This appointment follows the departure of Zhang Jiawen, who stepped down on August 10th, and Chen will temporarily continue to fulfill the Chief Inspector duties until a permanent replacement is named.
The appointment ends nearly a month of interim leadership and hands the reins of the 731.7 billion yuan asset manager to a seasoned regulator-focused executive. More than a routine internal promotion, this decision represents a calculated bet on stability and transformation amid the company's heavy reliance on fixed income, persistent struggles in equity funds, and the recent departure of a star fund manager.
Given his deep regulatory expertise and prior experience overseeing China's pension business at the parent bank, the strategic intent behind Chen Weixing's elevation is clear. The company appears focused not merely on defending its scale rankings, but on securing a path forward in an increasingly competitive and regulated fund industry. A series of high-level changes have already reshaped the management team over the past year.
Experience in Pension and Regulatory Affairs Takes Center Stage
The management shuffle began over a month ago. On August 10th, Bank of China Fund announced that Zhang Jiawen, the Executive President who joined in 2013, was leaving due to a work adjustment to take up a new post at BOC Investment (Hong Kong). Zhang, a 13-year veteran who became Executive President in late 2021, helped build the company's integrated and multi-strategy investment research framework. During his tenure, the company's scale grew from 398.2 billion yuan to over 730 billion yuan. To ensure a smooth transition, Chen Weixing, who had been serving as both Chief Inspector and Deputy Executive President, was initially named interim Executive President. Just over three weeks later, the interim role was made permanent, as announced on September 5th. Notably, the regulatory filing classified the appointment as a "new fund manager general manager," which is the industry's standard term for the role of CEO.
The new leader is more than just a compliance officer. Since joining Bank of China Fund in 2022, Chen has simultaneously held the positions of Chief Inspector and Deputy Executive President, overseeing both risk compliance and business operations. While this dual mandate is unusual, recent industry trends show similar cases. For instance, in March, the Chief Inspector of the 370 billion yuan Great Wall Fund was promoted to General Manager. Likewise, in late 2023, the Chief Inspector of Guorong Fund took over as acting General Manager and was later confirmed in the role after a seven-month search for a permanent candidate.
The Chief Inspector's primary duty is risk aversion, while a General Manager is expected to drive business growth within compliance boundaries. In an era of tighter regulation and a shift in focus from scale to returns, individuals well-versed in rules are now being pushed to the forefront. This marks the second major management change at Bank of China Fund within a year. In December 2025, Liu Xinqun was appointed Chairman and legal representative, a role previously filled temporarily by Zhang Jiawen. Both the Chairman and the new Executive President bring extensive backgrounds from the parent company, Bank of China, having each spent decades serving in various capacities, notably within its Shenzhen branch.
Liu Xinqun holds a doctorate in statistics from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law and has held senior roles at Bank of China's treasury, Shenzhen branch, and its Hong Kong subsidiary. Chen Weixing, who holds a PhD in accounting from Renmin University of China, has a similarly distinguished career, including positions at Bank of China's head office treasury and its Shenzhen branch. However, the most distinctive tag on his resume is "pension." He previously served as Deputy General Manager of the Head Office's Pension Finance Department.
This pension expertise aligns directly with Bank of China Fund's strategic focus on pension-oriented FOF products. When the national list of personal pension funds was first published, the company had three products among the initial selections. In late December 2025, it further expanded its offering with a Y-class share for personal pension accounts. With its major shareholder, Bank of China, highlighting pension finance as a group-level strategic priority, placing a senior executive experienced in overseeing the pension line at the helm is arguably the most logical move for the new leadership team. Founded in August 2004 and headquartered in Shanghai, Bank of China Fund is a member of the Bank of China group, with Bank of China holding 83.5% and BlackRock Investment Management (UK) holding 16.5%. Since its inception, the parent bank has stationed several directors and executives at the fund company, including its Chairman, Executive President, and several board members, further cementing the group's strategic direction.
The "group-style" appointments are designed to better implement shareholder strategy, strengthen risk control, and achieve internal resource synergy amid a complex market environment. However, some market observers point out potential drawbacks, such as weakening market-driven innovation and the challenge of balancing group strategy with industry marketization to avoid "outsiders directing insiders."
Fixed Income Dominance and the Declining Equity Business
As of now, Bank of China Fund manages 182 funds with total assets of 731.7 billion yuan, a decrease of 39.6 billion yuan from its peak at the end of the first quarter, causing its industry ranking to slip from 17th to 21st place. This scale is overwhelmingly dominated by fixed-income products. Money market and bond funds account for 453.6 billion yuan and 233.4 billion yuan respectively, collectively representing 93.89% of total assets under management. In contrast, its actively managed equity funds are notably weak, with stock and hybrid funds totaling a combined 310.4 billion yuan. This figure represents a staggering decline from 63.5 billion yuan in 2020, meaning equity assets have more than halved in five and a half years.
The fragility of the equity business came into sharp focus in March 2026. On March 19th, Zheng Ning, the company's leading medical and healthcare investor, abruptly resigned from all four of his funds due to "personal reasons," shortly before joining Everbright Prudential Fund. Zheng Ning had joined in 2022 and by late 2025 managed 7.7 billion yuan, roughly one-third of the company's active equity book. His flagship fund, Bank of China Hong Kong Stock Connect Healthcare A, delivered an impressive 82.67% return in 2025, ranking second among healthcare funds and attracting 3.3 billion yuan in new capital, cementing his reputation as a top performer. Despite his successors delivering respectable returns, investor redemptions have been significant. In just one quarter, the scale of Bank of China Hong Kong Stock Connect Healthcare shrank by over 24%, and Bank of China Innovative Healthcare by nearly 46%. The persistent inability to retain capital despite improving performance remains a deep-seated pain point for the company's equity franchise.
Several factors contributed to Zheng Ning's exit. These include the banks' natural bias towards fixed-income sales, which makes it difficult for equity products to gain significant traction; a talent gap in the investment research team, as his successors are less experienced and no other star equity managers have emerged to carry the banner; and the negative impact of many "mini" funds hovering near the liquidation threshold. Of the company's 11 funds exceeding 10 billion yuan each, all are fixed-income products, whether money market, mid-to-long-term bond, or hybrid bond funds. Moreover, of its 102 active equity funds, a third have assets under 50 million yuan, placing them dangerously close to the liquidation line. Between 2023 and 2026, the company has liquidated a total of 23 funds, the vast majority of which were equity-focused.
Challenges Ahead for the New Leader
Chen Weixing faces three primary challenges as he takes the helm. First, he must defend the fixed-income base, which represents nearly 700 billion yuan in assets. However, a single-quarter decline of over 62 billion yuan in non-money market funds illustrates the pressure on this segment as yields fall in a low-interest-rate environment and bond market volatility increases. New strategies are needed to preserve this scale. Second, he must address the company's underdeveloped index fund business. In an environment of fluctuating stock markets and questionable performance of actively managed funds, investors are increasingly drawn to the transparency and consistency of index funds. Between 2025 and 2026, the company launched 28 new products, including 13 index funds. Yet, its total index fund assets are about 38.4 billion yuan, heavily weighted toward bond index funds (22.6 billion yuan) and gold index funds (6.8 billion yuan), with stock index funds remaining comparatively small at roughly 4 billion yuan. Given the industry's shift towards passive investing, the lack of a significant ETF presence is a clear weakness. Third, he must revitalize the largely marginalized active equity business. As of the second quarter of 2026, Bank of China Fund's active equity scale ranks among the lowest of the 15 major bank-owned fund companies. In comparison, companies of similar overall size, such as Yongying Fund and ICBC Credit Suisse, have active equity assets of 181.9 billion yuan and 107.4 billion yuan, respectively, highlighting a significant strategic gap that is a result of long-term business choices.
The pivotal question is whether this new leader, equipped with deep regulatory knowledge and pension expertise, can leverage the fixed-income foundation to build a successful second growth engine. His ability to do so will ultimately determine whether Bank of China Fund enters the next chapter as a defender of the status quo or emerges as a true innovator among bank-owned asset managers facing transformation in 2026.