The trillion-dollar giant China Insurance recently adjusted the heads of two major subsidiaries in the asset management sector.

A Chinese brokerage firm reporter learned that the presidents of the two largest insurance group subsidiaries, People's Insurance Asset and People's Insurance Capital, were “in opposition” a few days ago: Wang Hao, the former president of People's Insurance Asset, was transferred to the president of People's Insurance Capital; Zeng Beichuan, the president of People's Insurance Capital, was transferred to the president of People's Insurance Asset. Another asset management subsidiary, Human Insurance Investment Control, has previously had a new president taking over as the former “Fallen Horse” president.

According to reports, China People's Insurance formulated the Group's wealth management business development plan in the first half of last year, proposing that while taking good care of the transformation of debt business to high-quality development, it is also necessary to promote the transformation of the asset side to high-quality development. For example, there has been a shift from “providing investment income within the group” to “managing internal capital while contributing management fee income and profits to the group.”

People's Insurance Asset and People's Insurance Capital CEO rivalry

A reporter from Broker China learned that following important personnel adjustments for the three insurance subsidiaries of financial insurance, life insurance, and health insurance, China People's Insurance Group recently carried out high-level personnel adjustments to its subsidiaries in the asset management sector.

Among them, Wang Hao, the former party committee secretary and president of People's Insurance Asset, was transferred to People's Insurance Capital to serve as party committee secretary and proposed president; Zeng Beichuan was promoted from the position of president of People's Insurance Capital to serve as party committee secretary and proposed president. In other words, the presidents of the two subsidiaries, People's Insurance Asset and People's Insurance Capital, are “in opposition.”

Wang Hao recently served as party committee secretary and proposed president of People's Insurance Capital, while Zeng Beichuan was transferred to People's Insurance Asset as party committee secretary and proposed president.

According to public information, Zeng Beichuan joined People's Insurance in 2008 and served in the People's Insurance Financial Holdings Preparatory Team. Later, he served as Vice President of People's Insurance Investment and Control and President of People's Insurance Capital. Prior to People's Insurance, he worked for Huaxia Bank and China Life Insurance.

Wang Hao became the CEO of People's Insurance Asset Management at the end of 2013. He previously served as the deputy general manager and general manager of Dacheng Fund for many years, and even earlier worked for China Merchants Securities. Wang Hao has been working in the management of the financial securities industry for a long time. Wang Hao has a market-based style.

People's Insurance Asset and People's Insurance Capital are both asset management subsidiaries directly owned by China People's Insurance Group, and there are differences in business.

Human Insurance Asset was founded in July 2003. It is the first insurance asset management company in China approved by the State Council and approved by the former China Insurance Regulatory Commission. Within the People's Insurance Group, it mainly manages the group's own funds, third party business, and carries out public fund business.

Meanwhile, People's Insurance Capital mainly focuses on alternative businesses such as equity plans and debt plans. Established in July 2009, it is the first asset management agency in China's insurance industry with alternative investment as its main business, and assumes responsibility for the main channels of alternative investment within the human insurance system.

At the same time, there is also a big difference in the volume of assets managed by the two companies. The management scale of people's insurance assets exceeds trillion dollars, which is far higher than that of people's insurance capital.

In addition, the People's Insurance Group also has another asset management subsidiary in the mainland, People's Insurance Investment Control, which mainly invests in real estate, and this company took the lead in changing the president. In 2019, after Liu Hong, the former party committee secretary and president of People's Insurance Investment Control, was investigated, the successor was determined in April to be Dong Qingxiu, the former supervisory director of People's Insurance Health.

Asset Management Sector Positioning: An Important Contributor to the Group's Incremental Profits

As an insurance group with total assets of over trillion dollars, China People's Insurance Group has an important “wheel” of business development in the investment sector, with a total of 4 subsidiaries in its investment sector. In addition to the human insurance assets, people's insurance capital, and people's insurance investment and control mentioned above, there are also people who insure Hong Kong, all of which hold 100% of the shares directly.

At the Investor Open Day held in November 2019, China People's Insurance revealed the orientation direction of asset management business (wealth management business): China's wealth management market is the most promising market in the world, and China People's Insurance wealth management business should increase its development efforts and become an important contributor to the Group's incremental profits.

The goal is that by 2023, the scale of third party asset management will double, third party assets will account for more than 50%, and profit contribution will exceed 8%; by 2028, the scale of third party asset management will double again, with a profit contribution of more than 12%.

In recent years, China People's Insurance's level of return on investment has been more stable than that of listed insurers as a whole, and it has also made some progress in third-party asset management business.

According to the 2019 semi-annual report, as of June 30, 2019, China People's Insurance Group's investment assets were about 930 billion yuan, and the asset management division's third-party asset management scale was 246.1 billion yuan.

In the first half of 2019, the total investment income of the People's Insurance Group was 23.948 billion yuan, up 11.3% year on year; net investment income was 22,501 billion yuan, down 0.7% year on year; annualized total investment return was 5.4%, up 0.3 percentage points year on year; and annualized net investment yield was 5.1%, down 0.3 percentage points year on year.

At the 2020 working conference held on January 16, China People's Insurance identified seven key tasks for 2020. Among them, the focus on asset management business is to continuously optimize investment management, strengthen investment and research capacity building, innovate interactive insurance application models, make up for shortcomings in post-investment management, improve market-based institutional mechanisms, and steadily enhance the Group's investment returns.