金融时报

金融时报 ][]CHINESE MUTUAL FUNDS CHINESE MUTUAL FUNDS Hot on the heels of Chinese art comes another must-have investment: domestic mutual funds. The fledgling domestic fund management industry has raised $18bn so far this quarter. Harvest Fund Management opened nearly a million accounts for its newest fund in a single day last week. This is all good news for domestic-based fund managers who are on track to reach retail assets of $75bn by the year-end. Shanghai's resurgent domestic-currency A-share market is the main catalyst. Having lagged behind its peers for much of the decade, it has risen 88 per cent this year. The ploy of issuing dividends, which eliminates or reduces the ―cash drag‖ by redistributing domestic funds' typically high cash quotients, also goes down a treat. The internationalisation of the industry since 2003 has helped to raise standards: of the 58 licensed fund managers, 24 are ventures with minority foreign companies. Deutsche Asset Management is partners with Harvest, for example, and Société Générale and Fortis are also big players. Fidelity, having sat on the sidelines, is now thought to be considering entry. Internationalisation has not eliminated China's key problem of volatility. Local retail customers are fickle: the surge of money into equities this quarter partly reflects outflows from money market funds. The structure of the fund management industry and stock market may also exacerbate the problem. The top five managers, all domestic, control some 40 per cent of industry assets. While the A-share market has a $700bn capitalisation, many stocks are small, illiquid and have limited free floats. The absence of short selling and derivatives makes hedging difficult. Reforms continue – for example, tight quotas for incoming portfolio investment have been modestly raised, and plans for 401-k style pension plans are being discussed. However, the fund management industry's structural flaws will not disappear until China further raises the quality of domestically listed companies and its stock market rules. For now, though, with a handful of domestic funds on track to generate returns in excess of 100 per cent this year, the bonanza is likely to keep rolling. 继中国艺术品之后，中国国内共同基金成为又一种人人必备的投资。本季度迄今为止，成长 迅速的国内基金管理行业筹集了180亿美元的资金。嘉实基金管理公司(Harvest Fund Management)最近发行一只新基金，上周一天的开户数就接近100万户。这对中国内地基 金管理公司来说都是利好消息，到今年底，它们的零售资产规模有望达到750亿美元。 人民币计价的上海A股市场的复苏，是促成这一局面的主要动因。2000年以来，A股市场 多年落后于其它股市，但今年已累计上涨88%。派发股息的做法也受到投资者欢迎，它对国内基金业普遍存在的高比重现金进行了再分配，消除或降低了―现金拖累‖(cash drag)效 应。 基金管理行业自2003年以来的国际化进程，推动了行业的提高：在58家获得经营许可的基金管理公司中，有24家是外资公司持有少数股权的合资基金。例如，德意志资产管 理公司(Deutsche Asset Management)是嘉实基金的合作伙伴，而法国兴业银行(Societe Generale)和富通集团(Fortis)也是中国基金行业的重要参与者。据悉，一直持观望态度的富 达基金(Fidelity)目前也在考虑进军中国市场。 国际化并未消除中国基金业的一个关键问题：波动性。本地散户客户反复无常：本季度流入 股市的资金大幅上升，其中部分资金就是从货币市场基金中流出的。基金管理行业和股票市 场的结构，或许也加剧了问题的严重性。最大的5家基金管理公司都是国内公司，它们控制 着约40%的行业资产。尽管中国A股市场的市值达7000亿美元，但许多股票的市值小、 流动性差、流通股数量有限。缺乏做空机制和衍生工具，意味着难以进行对冲。 改革仍在继续——例如，外来组合投资的额度已适当提高，推出类似美国401-k养老金的也正在讨论之中。然而，在中国进一步提高国内上市公司质量并完善股市规则之前， 中国基金管理行业的结构缺陷不会消失。但就目前来看，由于一些国内基金今年有望实现逾 100%的回报率，国内基金行业的好运可能仍将继续。