22.44 trillion! Private equity fund ongoing scale hits a new high for the 4th consecutive month

Cailian Press, February 28 — (Reporter Feng Qijuan) The China Securities Investment Fund Industry Association (CSIIFA) released last year’s January data on private fund manager registration and product filings today.

It is worth noting that by the end of January this year, the total scale of existing private fund products reached 22.44 trillion yuan. After hitting record highs of 22.05 trillion yuan in October, 22.09 trillion yuan in November, and 22.15 trillion yuan in December last year, the total has once again surpassed previous records, marking four consecutive months of new highs.

The January report indicated that six new private fund managers registered on the CSIIFA AMBERS system. Among them, three were securities private funds and three were equity private funds. In the same month, a total of 74 private funds completed deregistration.

In terms of new additions, January saw 1,235 private funds filed, with a new filing scale of 64.062 billion yuan, both the number of filings and the new establishment scale decreasing compared to December last year. Data shows that in December, 2,087 private funds were filed, with a new filing scale of 98.9 billion yuan.

As for existing funds, in January, there were 19,163 active private fund managers managing 139,153 private funds, with a total managed fund scale of 22.44 trillion yuan.

Additionally, according to Private Placement Network, the number of private funds filing securities products in January, as well as the number of new filings, both declined month-over-month.

January Private Fund Registration Overview

The CSIIFA disclosed that among the 1,235 private funds filed in January, 687 were private securities investment funds, 408 were venture capital funds, and 140 were private equity investment funds. Their respective new filing scales were 27.686 billion yuan, 21.439 billion yuan, and 14.937 billion yuan.

By the end of January, among the 19,163 active private fund managers, there were 11,488 private equity and venture capital funds, 7,500 securities private funds, 170 other private investment funds, and 5 asset allocation private funds.

Meanwhile, of the 139,153 active private funds, 80,801 were securities investment funds, 29,862 were private equity funds, and 27,729 were venture capital funds, with active scales of 7.26 trillion yuan, 11.15 trillion yuan, and 3.74 trillion yuan, respectively.

Looking at the geographic distribution of private fund managers, as of the end of January, the registered private funds are concentrated in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Zhejiang (excluding Ningbo), Guangdong (excluding Shenzhen), and Jiangsu, accounting for 72.39% of the total, unchanged from December last year.

Specifically, there are 3,622 in Shanghai, 3,173 in Beijing, 2,839 in Shenzhen, 1,533 in Zhejiang (excluding Ningbo), 1,520 in Guangdong (excluding Shenzhen), and 1,185 in Jiangsu. The proportions are 18.90%, 16.56%, 14.82%, 8.00%, 7.93%, and 6.18%, respectively.

In terms of fund management scale, the top six regions are Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangdong (excluding Shenzhen), Jiangsu, and Zhejiang (excluding Ningbo), collectively accounting for 75.38%, slightly down from 75.76% in December.

Their respective scales are 60.7339 trillion yuan in Shanghai, 50.7752 trillion yuan in Beijing, 20.5522 trillion yuan in Shenzhen, 13.5469 trillion yuan in Guangdong (excluding Shenzhen), 12.9678 trillion yuan in Jiangsu, and 10.5870 trillion yuan in Zhejiang (excluding Ningbo).

High Quantitative Content in Securities Private Fund Filings

According to Private Placement Network, in January, 472 private funds filed a total of 680 securities products (including self-issued and advisory products). While overall stable compared to the same period last year, the number of private funds filing decreased by 119, and the number of products filed decreased by 717 compared to December, when 799 private funds filed 1,397 products, representing a decline of over 50%.

Some private fund professionals suggest that the slowdown in filings in January is a normal post-year-end adjustment. As market sentiment stabilizes, filings are expected to rebound to balanced levels in February and March.

Stock strategies remain the dominant focus of private fund filings. In terms of primary strategies, 437 stock strategy products were filed in January, accounting for 64.26% of the total filings, clearly leading among all primary strategies.

Meanwhile, multi-asset strategy products totaled 123 filings, and futures and derivatives strategies totaled 72 filings, ranking second and third respectively.

Although filings slowed in January, leading quantitative private funds continue to hold a strong position.

According to Private Placement Network, only one quantitative private fund, Ming Sun Investment, filed more than 10 products in January, totaling 11 products.

Including Ming Sun Investment, ten private funds filed more than five products in January, with a significant proportion being billion-yuan scale quantitative funds. Among them, Huidi Private Fund and Liang Ying Investment each filed nine products; Dayan Capital and Shen Zhi Assets each filed eight; Jinde Private Fund and Evolutionary Assets each filed seven; Borun Yintai Investment, Kai Du Private Fund, and Pingfanghe Investment each filed six. Shen Zhi Assets mainly focuses on subjective long-short strategies.

According to CSIIFA, Huidi Private Fund, Liang Ying Investment, Dayan Capital, and Kai Du Private Fund are not billion-yuan funds, with managed scales of 50-100 billion yuan, 20-50 billion yuan, 50-100 billion yuan, and 50-100 billion yuan, respectively.

These non-billion private funds have a clear “quantitative” DNA. CSIIFA disclosed that the actual controller of Huidi Private Fund, Lin Weiping, previously served as Deputy Director of the Overseas Investment Department at the National Social Security Fund. Vice President Ouyang Mingqing has worked as a financial analyst at Thomson Reuters, a quantitative analyst at US hedge funds Highfields Capital Management and Fidelity Investments, and as a modeling director at Charles Schwab. Additionally, General Manager Huang Boxian of Dayan Capital previously worked in quantitative investment at Arxis Capital and Yingfeng Capital; General Manager Zhang Kang of Kai Du Private Fund previously served as a quantitative trader at Tower Research Capital, a well-known US quantitative trading firm.

Furthermore, Wang Zhexi, Managing Director of Liang Ying Investment, was an assistant researcher in the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and a software engineer at Google before entering the private equity industry.