8 Products Exit Market This Year, Retirement FOF Liquidation Pace Accelerates, "Retirement" Name Fails to Live Up to Reality

How does the “initiator” product system restrict the long-term development of养老FOF?

Cailian Press, March 23 — Reporter Feng Qijuan — Amid the current “big move” of residents’ deposits, massive funds are seeking stable investment outlets. As a result, the public fund FOF market has experienced a boom this year, with new products frequently selling out in a day. However, behind this prosperity,养老FOF are accelerating their liquidation pace.

In less than three months into the year, based on main codes, eight养老FOF have issued liquidation reports. These eight products come from five public fund companies: China Europe Fund, Hua’an Fund, ICBC Credit Suisse, Penghua Fund, and China-Jia Fund, with three, two, one, one, and one respectively.

If we extend the timeline, the number of养老FOF liquidations has been increasing year by year. Statistics show that in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, there were 2, 8, 13, and 14养老FOF announced for liquidation. Since 2022, among the 45养老FOF that have been liquidated, except for Guolian An Anxiang Stable养老Year (FOF), the remaining 44 are all initiator products, which is a core systemic issue leading to liquidations.

The overall prosperity of FOF reflects a reassessment of the value of professional asset allocation tools amid low interest rates and asset shortages. Recently, the continuous liquidation of养老FOF reveals systemic problems in product design, channel promotion, and investor education. As relatively complex allocation tools,养老FOF have high understanding thresholds for ordinary investors. Additionally, long lock-in periods of three to five years conflict with current investor preferences for short-term liquidity. Moreover, channels lack motivation to sell养老FOF due to low subscription fees and lower trailing commissions compared to equity products.

养老FOF, especially those rapidly deployed through “initiator” models, are trapped in outdated development patterns—relying on institutional funds to scale, neglecting sustainable investment capacity building, and diverging from genuine individual retirement needs. This “heavy issuance, light operation” development path is unsustainable.

High institutional ownership, low individual participation

Since the beginning of the year, the eight养老FOF that have been liquidated are dominated by institutional funds, with very low participation from individual investors. As a result, withdrawal of institutional funds has become the main driver of product liquidation.

China Europe Vision Retirement 2055 Five-Year (FOF), China Europe Vision Balanced Retirement Three-Year (FOF), and China Europe Vision Retirement Target 2045 Three-Year (FOF) were established at the end of December 2022, January, and February 2023, respectively, and are scheduled for liquidation at the end of 2025, January, and February 2026. During their existence, all three were managed solely by fund manager Deng Da.

According to Choice data, since 2022, the institutional holding ratio disclosed in the mid-year and annual reports of China Europe Vision Retirement 2055 Five-Year (FOF) has never been below 99.8%. Since 2023, the institutional holding ratio of China Europe Vision Balanced Retirement Three-Year (FOF) has generally exceeded 27%, and China Europe Vision Retirement Target 2045 Three-Year (FOF) has consistently held over 17%.

Hua’an Retirement Target 2050 Five-Year (FOF) and Hua’an Retirement Target 2035 Three-Year (FOF) were established successively in January 2023 and liquidated in the same month. During their existence, both were managed solely by fund manager He Yizhi. Since inception, their disclosed institutional holdings in mid-year and annual reports have been around 99%.

During the fund’s life, ICBC Credit Suisse Active Retirement Target Five-Year (FOF), China-Jia Anrui Active Retirement Five-Year (FOF), and Penghua Retirement 2040 Five-Year (FOF) were managed independently by Zhou Yin, Guo Zhi, and Zheng Ke, respectively.

ICBC Active Retirement Target Five-Year (FOF) has consistently disclosed institutional holdings around 95%. Penghua Retirement 2040 Five-Year (FOF) has consistently disclosed over 67%. From 2023 through mid-2024, China-Jia Anrui Active Retirement Five-Year (FOF) maintained institutional holdings above 70%, with 2024 annual and 2025 mid-year reports showing over 58%.

Generally, high dependence on institutional funds introduces two major risks: first, poor fund stability—large redemptions by institutions can cause significant scale fluctuations, triggering liquidation clauses; second, the products lack genuine retirement attributes, becoming tools tailored for institutions, diverging from the original goal of serving individual long-term retirement savings.

Mini initiator养老FOF face concentrated liquidations

As previously mentioned, all eight养老FOF liquidated this year are managed by a single fund manager, but their management scales and industry experience vary.

Among these managers, Deng Da is the only one managing funds exceeding 10 billion yuan. Currently, he manages five products, including four hybrid FOFs and one retirement target FOF that has passed the three-year scale test.

By the end of Q3 2025, Deng Da will have become a billionaire fund manager for the first time, with a total of 7 products totaling 12.011 billion yuan, up 68.86% from 7.113 billion yuan mid-year. By year-end, the five managed products will total 10.941 billion yuan.

In September and October last year, Deng Da’s China Europe Vision Retirement 2040 Three-Year (FOF) and China Europe Yixiang Balanced Retirement Target Three-Year (FOF) were liquidated, both being initiator products.

In comparison, other fund managers manage smaller scales. As of the end of last year, Hua’an Fund’s He Yizhi managed five products with a total scale of only 576 million yuan. In the second half of last year, three Hua’an养老目标FOF were liquidated, leaving three initiator养老FOF.

At the end of last year, Zhou Yin (ICBC Credit Suisse), Zheng Ke (Penghua), and Guo Zhi (China-Jia) managed total scales of 1.133 billion, 1.196 billion, and 788 million yuan, respectively. Zhou Yin manages five FOFs, including three养老目标FOF, one股票FOF, and one混合FOF. Zheng Ke manages six products, including four混合FOF and two养老目标FOF. Guo Zhi manages three products, each being one混合FOF, one养老目标FOF, and one债券FOF.

It’s noteworthy that small management scales often mean limited research resources, high maintenance costs, and difficulty in achieving sustained performance and brand effects.

Performance divergence is obvious; the “养老” label is hard to justify

Although labeled as “retirement,” focusing on stable allocation, the performance of these eight liquidated养老FOF varies greatly. Despite similar inception times, their returns differ by nearly 28%.

According to Choice, Penghua Retirement 2040 Five-Year (FOF) performed the best, with a return of 31.05% since inception, ranking third among 314 similar products.

Since inception, China Europe Vision Retirement Target 2045 Three-Year (FOF), China Europe Vision Balanced Retirement Three-Year (FOF), and China Europe Vision Retirement 2055 Five-Year (FOF) have returns of 15.32%, 15.11%, and 16.29%, respectively, generally ranking in the top third of their peers.

Hua’an Retirement Target 2035 Three-Year and Hua’an Retirement Target 2050 Five-Year have returns of 12.89% and 11.07%, respectively, with the former ranking in the top 40% and the latter in the top 70% among similar products.

ICBC Credit Suisse Active Retirement Target Five-Year (FOF) has a return of 12.52%, ranking in the top 50%.

Notably, the returns of China-Jia Anrui Active Retirement Five-Year (FOF) and Penghua Retirement 2040 Five-Year (FOF) differ by 27.74%. China-Jia Anrui’s performance lags significantly, with a return of only 3.31%, ranking 297th among 319 similar products, placing it in the bottom 10%.

It’s also important to note that the sustained volatility in equity markets from 2022 to 2024 has put pressure on the overall performance of养老FOF.

Industry insiders believe that the performance gap is severe, and the “retirement” label is hard to justify. This divergence exposes two issues: first, significant differences in investment strategies and asset allocation capabilities, with some products failing to demonstrate the stability and discipline expected of retirement investments; second, performance and scale do not form a healthy cycle—good performance alone cannot sustain life if institutional shareholding remains too high.

Initiator养老FOF are less “resilient”

养老FOF are divided into initiator and non-initiator types, with fundamentally different liquidation rules and scale pressures—this is a core systemic reason behind the current wave of liquidations.

According to Choice, out of 253养老主题FOF in the market, 148 are initiator products, and 105 are non-initiator products. Specifically, among the 148 initiator products, there are 26 with one-year, 74 with three-year, and 39 with five-year holding periods; among the 105 non-initiator products, 63, 35, and 6 correspond to these periods.

It’s clear that initiator养老FOF with three- and five-year holding periods are more numerous.

The key feature of initiator养老FOF is low entry barriers but high ongoing requirements: fund companies, senior management, and fund managers must purchase no less than 10 million yuan at inception. While this reduces the difficulty of establishment, if the scale does not meet the three-year test, the fund can be terminated without convening a unitholder meeting, and the contract ends immediately.

In practice, many initiator养老FOF focus heavily on establishment, neglect ongoing marketing and investor education, making it difficult to grow scale, and triggering liquidation clauses upon maturity.

In contrast, non-initiator养老FOF have more relaxed liquidation rules—if the scale remains below 50 million yuan for 60 consecutive days or the number of unitholders drops below 200, liquidation can be triggered, but requires a unitholder vote, making mass liquidations less likely.

Therefore, non-initiator养老FOF tend to be more “resilient,” either starting with larger scales or having more complex liquidation procedures, making mass liquidations less common compared to initiator products.

(Choice, Reporter Feng Qijuan)