Recently, rumors about "layoffs" and "salary cuts" have continued to circulate and ferment in the public fund industry, and the protagonist of the rumors has naturally aroused great attention in the industry.
A public fund observer said, "In fact, there is no wind and no waves, or in other words, there is no need to confirm which protagonists of the rumors are, because the industry is in a 'painful period', and such situations may become more and more and become an industry phenomenon." ”
Throughout the history of the industry's development, public funds are undoubtedly experiencing a "painful period" of supply-side reform. At present, the practical issue facing fund companies is how to reflect the professional actions of institutional investors, and then create investment value for customers, on this basis, it is possible to obtain reasonable returns sustainably and grow into a first-class asset management institution.
Rumors of "layoffs and pay cuts" have made a comeback
At the turn of the new year and the old year, the rumors of "layoffs" and "salary cuts" in the public fund industry continue to heat up.
On the eve of New Year's Day, a widely circulated WeChat chat record said, "The liquidation of the public fund industry has begun, and a fund company has laid off employees in disguise." According to the chat log, the fund company set up a reemployment center with the aim of allowing some employees who did not perform well to return to the furnace for reconstruction, and only the minimum wage was paid during the reengineering period. At present, the first batch of lists has been announced, involving 5 fund managers and 3 researchers. The chat record also pointed out that this behavior was a disguised layoff, not to mention the compensation of "N+1", and named the fund company in question.
Subsequently, the named fund company publicly spread rumors, saying that it had never adopted the assessment method described in the recent Internet rumors, and that the company fully respected every employee and respected the labor results of every employee. The fund company said that the rumor information was untrue, which had constituted rumors and slander against the company, seriously damaged the company's reputation, and would reserve the right to take legal measures.
Coincidentally. Recently, there is a screenshot of WeChat chat, saying that the investment department of a fund company has been reformed, and the fund manager has reduced the number of employees, and the fund manager will select people from the investment department and the research department to form their own base team; at the same time, the two groups under the research department will be merged, and the cycle researchers will be laid off to streamline the number of people; in addition, the treatment may also be reduced in the form of salary to improve the flexibility of bonuses.
In this regard, the Chinese reporter of the brokerage conducted an interview and found that this was actually part of a rumor that had been circulating in 2020. At that time, the fund company mentioned in the rumor had responded that the said news was untrue.
In addition, it is also reported that a leading public offering in Beijing began to lay off employees and reduce salaries, "the basic salary of researchers will be reduced by 25%, and the basic salary of fund managers will be reduced by 30%, effective in January 2024." The news also said that each group of the head public offering investment research line has 10% of the regular optimization quota, and the investment researchers are selected according to the completion of the year-end performance.
In addition to "layoffs" and "salary cuts", rumors of "salary limits" of public funds have also been rumored from time to time. Recently, the entry "The salary of public fund managers may be capped at 3.5 million yuan" once appeared on the hot search list. In fact, rumors about the salary limit of public fund managers have continued to ferment and circulate since 2022, and the version has been changed several times, from a cap of 50 million yuan to a cap of 15 million yuan, and now it has dropped to 3.5 million yuan.
For the above-mentioned unconfirmed "salary limit" rumors, some industry insiders believe that the industry may not adopt this "one-size-fits-all" approach of income capping, and should still formulate corresponding regulations in combination with the salary policy and actual situation of specific companies, "Public funds are highly dependent on human capital industry, and companies need to balance between making money from the company, making money from holders and retaining outstanding talents through salary settings." ”
In fact, the mutual fund industry has kicked off salary restrictions since 2022. In April 2022, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the High-quality Development of the Public Fund Industry", which pointed out that fund managers should be urged to strictly implement the salary deferral system, establish and improve the bonus co-investment mechanism for core employees such as management and fund managers, implement the bonus recourse and clawback system for those responsible for violations, and strictly prohibit short-term incentives and excessive incentives. In May 2022, the regulatory authorities in many places notified all public offering institutions to submit their salary mechanism plans before the end of the month, one of the most important of which is to curb the situation of excessive salaries, excessive growth, and a small number of high-level salaries. In June 2022, AMAC officially issued the "Guidelines for Performance Appraisal and Salary Management of Fund Management Companies", which put forward specific requirements in terms of salary structure, salary payment, performance appraisal, and salary internal control management, which the market calls the "public offering salary limit order". According to the guidelines, fund companies should establish and implement a deferred payment system for performance-based remuneration, with a deferred payment period of not less than 3 years, and the amount of deferred payment for senior managers, fund managers and other key positions shall not be less than 40% in principle. This also means that if this mechanism is adopted in the public offering, the fund manager cannot change jobs for at least 3 years if he wants to get all the bonuses.
The industry is in a "labor pain" period
At present, why are rumors about "layoffs" and "salary cuts" of public fund companies frequently circulating, and some rumors even "fry cold rice" about the rumors from three years ago?
In this regard, a public fund observer said, "In fact, there is no wind and no waves, or in other words, there is no need to confirm which protagonists of the rumors are, because the industry is in the 'labor pains', and such situations may become more and more and become an industry phenomenon." ”
An insider of a public fund in East China believes that under the pressure of a series of factors, the public fund industry will inevitably experience a process of self-adjustment and innovation due to the rapid development of public offerings, volatile market performance, and poor investor gain. More importantly, in the context of advocating high-quality economic development, the public fund industry also needs to carry out a series of optimization and even reforms in order to achieve more high-quality development. In this process, the clearing of the industry and the flow of personnel will be normal.
The above-mentioned person also said that any enterprise will have a turnover of personnel, the absorption of outstanding talents, the outflow of relatively poor performance personnel is a common phenomenon in the daily development process of enterprises, "However, there is no obvious sense of a sharp turnover of personnel at the moment." There may be two constraints on this. "On the one hand, challenges are common to the industry. In the current environment, companies tend to be cautious in personnel recruitment, so there should not be many good positions in the market, which leads to the willingness of incumbents to go out and move is not strong. On the other hand, the employee performance appraisal of most enterprises is based on the annual unit, and the appraisal cycle of many companies will be comprehensively considered to three or five years, and it is difficult for a department or a team to have a situation where everyone's performance is not good, so it is still an individual situation to face the elimination of employees based on poor performance evaluation, and it is difficult to form a scale. However, it is foreseeable that in the next few years, the performance management of the public offering industry will only become more stringent, and the selection of talents will be more cautious.
An insider of a medium-sized fund company in South China told reporters that his company has begun to strictly control the increase of employees, "unless the business work is extremely necessary, the new recruitment indicators will be suspended." In terms of resignations, the number of resignations is about the same as in previous years, and there is no significant change. ”
According to the data of Wind statistics, the number of fund managers in the public offering industry has exceeded 300 for the first time in 2021, and it has been maintained at this level in the past two years, with 323 and 320 in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
Trust & Image Rebuilding
Since its development in 1998, the public offering industry has gone through 25 years of ups and downs and has played a very important role in serving the development of the real economy. Especially in recent years, the public offering industry has experienced a period of rapid development, and many individual investors have turned to public fund investment.
However, another fund observer told reporters that it is precisely in the past three years that the public offering industry has fallen into the predicament of poor performance, and investors have a poor sense of gain, which have put forward an urgent need for change in the industry's own reform. The recent rumors of "layoffs" and "salary cuts" also reflect investors' emotional demands for the pain points of the public offering industry to a certain extent - whether the public fund has really assumed its due responsibility?
In fact, this is also an important issue facing the public offering industry, which needs to be reflected and discussed by the industry, and solved and responded to with actions, because it is related to the reshaping of the trust and image of the industry.
"In high-quality development, if public funds want to reshape customer trust and industry image, they must have the determination to respond and act. In this process, some excellent companies or individuals will stand out, while some underperforming individuals will naturally face elimination. It's a harsh choice for the market, and it's a necessary stage for any industry to move forward. The above-mentioned fund observer said.
He said that the development of nothing will not be smooth sailing, nor can it be achieved overnight. As long as the original intention remains unchanged and the company has the confidence and action to seek change and development, the future of public offering is still worth looking forward to.
The above-mentioned insiders from a medium-sized fund company in South China also held a similar view. When analyzing the rumors of "salary cut", he said that on the surface, product fee reduction, scale reduction, new issuance and holding are not ideal, which will lead to a decrease in the company's overall revenue and profit, which will naturally trigger fund companies to launch cost reduction and efficiency improvement measures including salary cuts and layoffs, which is actually a reflection of the cyclical nature of the industry. At a deeper level, this is actually the "painful" stage that the public offering industry must go through to high-quality development. Since 2019, the mutual fund industry has achieved ultra-rapid development, but in fact, the industry's governance ability and cognitive level have not yet matched the current industry status and scale, and there will naturally be some "tears", the most important embodiment of which is how public funds should give full play to the professional value of institutional investors.
"We often talk about wanting to take the first step, but in fact, the public offering industry should reflect and improve during this dormant period, and only by truly creating value for investors can we obtain reasonable returns in a sustainable manner. After this round of supply-side structural reform of the industry is cleared, those companies that have really changed are likely to grow into first-class asset management institutions. The above-mentioned insider said.
Editor-in-charge: Tactical Heng
Proofreading: Su Huanwen