① Are smaller and medium-sized fund companies more competitive? Industry giants such as E Fund Management and Fullgoal also dominate the list of top-performing funds; ② China Universal leads in the first three quarters, with its industrialized investment research system transformation proving effective; ③ Over the past five years, Huatai-PineBridge, HuaAn, and HuaBao have excelled in navigating through bull and bear markets.
Cailian Press, October 22 (reporter Yan Jun) — The Shanghai Composite Index breached the 3900-point mark for the fourth time this October. With a recovery in the equity market this year, actively managed equity funds have returned to investors' focus. 'Doubling funds' have re-emerged, and while smaller and medium-sized fund companies have stood out due to their performance, how have the long-established large-scale fund houses performed?
Amid sector rotation and shifting market styles, mutual fund companies seized opportunities once again. Established equity giants, in particular, underwent proactive transformations, gradually breaking free from the constraints of 'star fund managers,' and witnessed another surge in performance.
From multiple time horizons, E Fund Management, Fullgoal, and Invesco Great Wall lead the industry in the number of top-performing products. Meanwhile, firms like Huatai-PineBridge, HuaAn, and HuaBao demonstrated outstanding ability to navigate through bull and bear markets, delivering stable returns to investors over the past five years.
Large-scale equity fund companies remain highly competitive in investment capabilities.
Since the 'September 24' rally of 2024, market sentiment has undergone a complete reversal. At the beginning of this year, the technology sector was ignited by DeepSeek, leading to a multi-sector rotation and upward trend in both the A-share and Hong Kong stock markets. Artificial intelligence, innovative drugs, chips, and other sectors successively showed strong activity, continuously boosting market sentiment.
Many fund companies have capitalized on the window of net asset value growth, achieving dual gains in performance and scale. While smaller and medium-sized fund companies have shown sharpness, established equity giants have also risen to the occasion without hesitation.
As of October 20, among the top 50 funds ranked by year-to-date returns across the entire market, 29 belong to the top 20 fund companies by equity scale. Among these 29 high-performing funds, six are from E Fund Management, four from Fullgoal Fund, and three from China AMC; ICBC Credit Suisse, GF Fund Management, China Universal, Invesco Great Wall, and HuaBao Fund each have two; additionally, Huatai-PineBridge Fund, HuaAn Fund, Guotai Fund, China Universal Fund, Penghua Fund, and Bosera Fund each have one.
After the era of 'star fund managers,' investors shifted their mindset from 'buying funds means buying the manager' to 'following whoever comes' and 'success or failure attributed to so-and-so.'
Following the end of the star-making myth, more fund companies began reconsidering their approaches to scaling through packaging fund managers. Starting with integrating investment research, they restructured processes, transforming investment research into a replicable and sustainable operational model to rebuild investor trust in fund companies and their products. In this regard, established active equity giants, having learned from past lessons, have stronger motivation to change.
In the view of observers, leading equity firms are more eye-catching in the fierce competition for ETFs, but this does not mean that large firms are not also making efforts in other business segments such as active equity and fixed income. Meanwhile, the accumulation of investment research and talent by established firms, as well as counter-cyclical talent reserves, has played an important role.
Looking at a longer time horizon, it seems that the performance of established equity firms remains more robust. According to Wind data, as of September 30, there were more than 3,500 actively managed equity funds in the market with a track record of at least three years, of which 222 had an annualized return of 20%. Notably, 15 of these 222 products came from E Fund; Invesco Great Wall and Fullgoal tied for second place with nine products each.
When looking at a five-year statistical period, there were 350 actively managed equity funds with annualized returns exceeding 10%, of which E Fund had 17. The number of top-performing funds from Invesco Great Wall, Wanji, and Huaan also exceeded 10.
Industrial Transformation: Europe-China Leads Equity Firms Year-to-Date
Guotai Haitong Securities Research recently released the absolute return rankings for actively managed equity funds of fund companies for the third quarter of 2025. The data showed that in Q3 2025, all actively managed equity funds from 165 public fund companies achieved positive returns.
Overall, the average return of actively managed equity funds of fund companies was 25.93%. By company size, the average returns for large, medium, and small fund companies were 26.31%, 24.90%, and 25.97%, respectively. Large and medium-sized fund companies, with their comprehensive investment research systems, demonstrated greater advantages in average returns.
Among the top 20 fund companies by equity scale, 18 outperformed the average return of large fund companies' actively managed equity funds. The best-performing fund company in the first three quarters was Europe-China Fund, with a return of 41.26%, leading the industry.
Europe-China Fund has also been highly noteworthy in its reform of the investment research system this year. The company previously revealed that based on a framework reconstruction of the investment research system of public fund managers from concept to process, and deeper reflections on the future development path of the entire industry, Europe-China Fund is striving to shift the realization path of 'letting long-term performance speak' from reliance on individuals to reliance on systems, fundamentally changing the 'manufacturing approach' of funds.
In Europe-China’s vision for investment research, the investment research team aims to build a truly productive and long-lasting system through the synergy of 'professionalization, industrialization, and digital intelligence,' allowing every professional talent to better leverage their innate abilities and focus while receiving systematic support and empowerment within the organization.
This allows investment researchers to focus on more specialized areas and provide extreme professionalism, with collaboration akin to assembly-line workflows that empower each other. Judging by performance, this transformation is already yielding results.
In addition, Huitianfu Fund has regained its active label with a year-to-date return of 40.28% in the first three quarters, ranking second; E Fund Management, Penghua Fund, Fuguo Fund, Guotai Fund, Bosera Fund, and Xingzheng Global Fund all achieved returns exceeding 35% during the same period.
Large fund companies face pressure over five-year returns, with Huatai-PineBridge taking the lead.
Over a longer time horizon, the A-share market experienced an initial decline followed by recovery from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2025. The peak moments for consumer staples and new energy sectors drove a surge in the issuance of new public mutual fund products. As these thematic stocks adjusted, the A-share market hit its 'darkest moment' around mid-2024, only reversing course after the "924" rally.
During this process, fund performance came under pressure. Statistics compiled by Guotai Haitong indicate that smaller fund companies proved more agile, while large companies faced greater pressure due to their high number of products issued at market peaks. Among the top 20 fund management companies by assets under management, Huatai-PineBridge Fund led with a five-year return of 39.3%. Huaan Fund and Huabao Fund ranked second and third with returns of 36.64% and 32.99%, respectively. China AMC and ICBC Credit Suisse Fund also delivered five-year returns exceeding 30%.
Additionally, China Merchants Fund, E Fund Management, Tianhong Fund, Xingzheng Global Fund, and Guotai Fund achieved returns above 20%, placing them among the top ten performers.
