I went to a number of fund companies and discovered a secret

Glacier think tank

2024-06-28 13:16Glacier Think Tank Official Account

I went to a number of fund companies and discovered a secret

Collecting the management fees of the people, not to mention that they failed to outperform the market, the net value of the fund fell deeper than the index, even if they found thousands of reasons and apologized many times, the hat of dereliction of duty would always be buckled on the head of the fund manager.

Written by丨Zhou Longbin

In the banking and securities industries, "reverse salary bargaining" is no longer uncommon, and now, this fire is also burning to the fund industry.

At the beginning of June, there was news in the fund industry that some leading public funds required employees to return the part of last year's salary of more than 2.9 million yuan.

The reporter of the Financial Associated Press recently verified and learned that some public funds of central enterprises have indeed implemented salary limit measures, and since 2022, the salary refund work that exceeds the standard has been launched this week, but the salary refund standard is not the above-mentioned 2.9 million yuan, but after reaching a certain standard, part of it will be returned.

As soon as the news came out, many people applauded.

It's really too difficult to talk about this year's people. Some people asked:

Recently, because of the relatively idle time, I opened and inquired about the fund for three consecutive days, and each time I opened it, it was a few hundred. The first time I bought a fund, I don't know much, I want to ask everyone, is there a handling fee for fund inquiry?

"The family has money to spend, the China Europe Fund is looking for Gülen, and no one has a share of it, and there is Zhang Kun in E Fund." Gülen, who was the goddess of medicine two years ago, has now become Aunt Ge, and Zhang Kun, who holds the title of "YYDS" (eternal god), has also fallen off the altar.

I also have a lot of colleagues around me who have bought funds, and they used to ask me about my views on the market, but recently they have not mentioned anything about the fund. When I asked, I realized that I didn't want to see it because I had lost too much, so I just didn't have this investment.

Some colleagues even joked, "Take this money to buy stocks, throw a coin every day, buy heads and sell back, you don't necessarily lose so much, I really don't know why fund managers get such high salaries." ”

In the impression of many people, fund managers can mobilize hundreds of millions of funds to fight in the market with their fingers every day, and an annual salary of millions is just the entry threshold for fund managers.

This is not the case.

According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2023, among urban non-private units, the top three industries with average wages are information transmission, software and information technology services, finance, scientific research and technical services, reaching 230,000 yuan, 190,000 yuan and 170,000 yuan respectively.

It can be seen that the wealth halo of the computer and Internet industries in the early years was better than that of fund managers, but in the past two years, Internet companies have been surrounded by voices of optimization and salary cuts, and even the three major financial industries of banking, insurance, and securities have also frequently raised salaries.

Everyone has taken a step back, and only the fund industry is still in place. If the net value of most funds is not bad, the high salaries of fund managers are not so abrupt, but this is not the case.

Three years ago (at the end of the second quarter of 2021), when the fund industry was in high spirits, the number of funds that achieved the achievement of 10 billion funds at that time was 74. Some fund managers' annual salaries are even close to 100 million yuan, but that is only a very small number of cases, and most fund managers are paid between 1 million and 5 million yuan.

Three years have passed in a flash. Statistics in the first quarter of this year show that the average loss of these 74 funds is as high as 43%, and the scale of 55 funds has fallen beyond the threshold of 10 billion. In 2023 alone, equity fund products, mainly equity and hybrid funds, will "help" investors lose 890 billion yuan, and the loss in the previous year exceeded 1 trillion.

In all fairness, to say that the fund has a negative return, you really can't blame the fund manager for it. The A-share market is expected to be in a valuation depression, the Shanghai Composite Index and 3,000 points are lingering, and the market as a whole lacks opportunities and cannot make money.

However, not to mention the fact that the management fee of the people has not been able to outperform the market, the net value of the fund has fallen deeper than the index, even if there are thousands of reasons and apologies many times, the hat of dereliction of duty will always be buckled on the head of the fund manager.

The performance of fund managers is unsightly, and if they want to get high salaries, not only the people do not agree, but the fund companies do not agree to it in the first place, and it is understandable to adjust (mainly reduce) the remuneration of fund managers.

But is it really reasonable to ask fund managers to return the salaries they have already received?

There is a law to follow for the "reverse wage bargaining" in the banking industry.

As early as 2010, the former China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) issued the Guidelines for the Supervision of Prudent Remuneration for Commercial Banks, Article 16 of which stated that:

Commercial banks shall formulate provisions on the deferred recourse and clawback of performance-based remuneration, and shall have the right to recover all the performance-based remuneration paid within the corresponding period if the risk losses of its senior management and relevant employees are excessively exposed within the prescribed period.

When a commercial bank signs an employment contract with an employee, if it specifies the retroactive clawback clause for performance-based compensation, the commercial bank can naturally recover the salary in accordance with the contract when the employee violates the terms and conditions. However, in the fund industry, the public fund involved in the return of wages did not have a clear recourse clawback mechanism before.

When the company needs to recruit talents with high salaries, various bonuses and incentive policies are very happy; When the company's performance was poor, he turned his face and didn't recognize people, and slapped his thigh and began to claim salary. Finance is the result of the development of credit, and credit is the essence of finance. It is precisely because of trust that customers are willing to hand over their funds to the fund company to take care of, but the fund company has no integrity to its own people, let alone customers.

A friend said that in the storm of "reverse salary bargaining" in the fund industry, some fund companies have to refund the money before tax, and the original annual salary of 5 million yuan is 3 million yuan, and now it will also return 5 million yuan when the money is returned. This means that the fund company not only denies all the previous work results of the fund manager, but even the part of the enterprise that should pay taxes according to the law must be borne by the employees.

Once the fund company's lack of contractual spirit is tacitly acquiesced, it is entirely possible that the same gourd will be extended to all walks of life in the future.

Respecting agreements and keeping promises is far more important than asking the fund manager for money.

What fund companies should consider now is how to formulate a reasonable compensation system, and there is a ready-made example to learn from.

In his early investment career, Warren Buffett was mainly engaged in partnership private equity funds. His fee model for the fund is one with an annual return on investment of 6% and below, all the proceeds go to the client, and they do not charge any management fees. More than 6%, Buffett they share 25%.

In this way, the interests of Buffett's team can be deeply bound to customers, coupled with the excellent performance of the fund, Buffett's fund scale is getting bigger and bigger.

I am also a believer in Warren Buffett's value investing philosophy, and after graduation, I worked as a trader in several fund houses. A trader is a position in a fund company that trains fund managers, and the funds for their operations are allocated by the company, but the amount of funds is usually lower than that of the fund manager.

Among the many fund companies I have worked for, there is even a leading fund company with a scale of 10 billion yuan. After more than 3 years of experience as a trader, I found one interesting thing: no matter the size, fund companies want the kind of traders who can make huge profits in the short term, rather than the stable profitability of traders.

▲The work scene of the author of this article as a trader in a fund company (photo provided by the author)

This puzzled me for a while, the flip side of high returns is necessarily high risk. The top tour capital "Brother Zhao" has been 10,000 times in 8 years, and 100,000 has become 1 billion is a legend in the stock market, but the so-called "legend" cannot be replicated, and the vast majority of investors who pursue short-term quick profits have finally disappeared.

Later, I found out that most funds implement the policy of "ensuring income during drought and flood", and the management fee is collected regardless of whether the fund is profitable or not.

The salary structure of public fund managers is relatively simple, mainly basic salary + management fee sharing. Private equity funds are relatively flexible, and they also need to be combined with the commission of the fund's excess returns. This means that it is the size of the fund rather than the performance of the fund that affects the stable income of fund companies and fund managers.

It is an exaggeration to say that the level of a fund manager's bonus and income is only related to whether his boss is happy or not, and basically has nothing to do with the people.

It is really difficult to rely on the sustained and stable growth of performance to increase the scale of the fund. No one can make the performance of the fund like the fund manager Madoff, who once had the title of "Wall Street Legend", from the early 70s of the last century until 2008, during the 40 years of the fund's stable annual profit of about 10%, won the reputation of "investment must earn" in the world.

Why did Madoff's track record of such a successful fund stay in 2008? Because Madoff's fund faced huge redemptions that year, and the fund itself was a massive Ponzi scheme, Madoff's fund yielded entirely from his own myths.

In contrast, it is much less difficult to make huge profits in the short term, and it is enough to bet on a hot industry. Therefore, relying on the rapid rise of the net worth curve to attract customers has become the norm in the fund industry. Some fund companies issue dozens of products at the same time, invest in different industries, and retain them after a year to create a popular fund, and raise funds from investors through vigorous publicity, covering up the really excellent fund products.

It is precisely because the personal income of fund managers is not closely tied to the fate (or income) of the people, which is also the root cause of the strong dissatisfaction of the people with the high salaries of fund managers.

To put it bluntly, if it can bring long-term benefits to the people, even if the fund manager gets a high salary, I believe the people are happy to accept it. Can't the fund manager (the shopkeeper) eat and drink spicy food every day, and the people (the owner) drink the northwest wind every day, right?

It's time to show the courage to scrape the bones and heal the poison, and drastically reform the salary distribution mechanism of the fund industry.

Our domestic fund managers generally take Warren Buffett as an example, and whether the investment ability can be compared with each other may be put aside, and learning Buffett's fund management model may be the first step.

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