COSO Manager Change and Fund Compliance Risk Review

The insurance-affiliated fund company COSO has changed general managers. On June 23, the company announced that general manager He Hua was leaving due to work arrangements, and Liu Zhongjiang would take over. Liu previously served as general manager of the direct investment division and general manager of the fixed-income investment department at the company's controlling shareholder, China Life.

Outgoing general manager He Hua had served since January 2023, for three years and more than five months. Before becoming COSO's general manager, he was the general manager of China Life's equity investment department.

On the company's website homepage, the slogan reads: "12 years of staying true to our mission, rewarding every trust." However, the company's actual operating results over the past three-plus years have been far from ideal. As of the end of Q1 this year, its non-money-market fund scale was 181.8 billion yuan, ranking 30th in the industry. The fund mix is mainly bond funds, with a very small equity share. Stock funds are about 10 billion yuan and mixed funds about 5.6 billion yuan.

As the former head of China Life's equity department, during He Hua's three years and five-plus months as general manager, the firm's equity fund scale not only failed to grow but actually declined. Mixed funds fell by as much as 50%.

During He Hua's tenure, COSO's equity funds not only underperformed and shrank, but internal control also exposed significant loopholes one after another.

Regulatory penalty clues: rat trading and illegal market manipulation

In August 2025, an administrative penalty document from the Tianjin Securities Regulatory Bureau showed that fund manager Li Dan was punished for "rat trading."

Earlier, in December 2023, an administrative penalty document from the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau showed that the head of the firm's account management division, Hu Wenbiao, was fined for illegal stock speculation and market manipulation.

Operational and governance discussion behind the management change

Despite these issues, it does not affect He Hua's return to the controlling shareholder and continued reuse in management. The article notes that day-to-day work at COSO is heavily burdened by paperwork and meetings. In the company's performance system, the requirement to make money for investors has not been placed where it should be, which deviates significantly from the CSRC's high-quality-development requirements.

Over the past three-plus years, the controlling shareholder has sent many people to the company to occupy key positions, while the hardest and most tiring work has still mainly been hired from the market. This has sharply reduced the company's market orientation and seriously weakened its research, investment, and sales capabilities.

The article also mentions that before 2023, COSO was more market-oriented. The company's first general manager, Zuo Jiqing, was relatively principled and defended corporate governance.

Company development and the closing argument about the "broken filter"

COSO was founded in October 2013 by people including Zuo Jiqing, then head of fixed income at China Life Asset, and Shen Mengyu, deputy general manager of risk management and compliance (acting head).

After its founding, COSO took 10 years to grow from nothing into a mid-sized fund company. By the end of 2022, its non-money-market fund scale was 128.5 billion yuan, ranking 31st in the industry. Stock funds were about 7.6 billion yuan and mixed funds about 12.8 billion yuan.

The article says the company was highly professional at that time, with management mainly hired from the market and strong competitiveness. But after it grew larger, some people at the controlling shareholder began coveting key positions and demanded appointments. Zuo Jiqing was unwilling to cooperate with such unreasonable demands and was under enormous pressure.

In January 2023, general manager Zuo Jiqing, chief inspector Shen Mengyu, and fixed-income investment director Dong Ruiqian all left for "personal reasons." After Changning State-owned Assets entered Chunhou Fund, in January 2026 Zuo Jiqing and Shen Mengyu became general manager and deputy general manager of Chunhou Fund, respectively.

In the closing metaphor comparing the story to the butterfly dream of Zhuangzi, the article argues that COSO should seriously study the meaning and essence of "development is the hard truth," focus on operating performance, return to a market-oriented and international development path, abandon formalism, and improve the management layer's dedication to real work so that state capital is preserved and increased in value and investors can earn good returns.