Reporter Guo Luqing
[The first principal guaranteed fund with the word "principal guaranteed" in its name is the Yinhua principal guaranteed value-added fund established in 2004.]
Recently, with the release of default risk of credit bonds, the net value of more than 100 principal guaranteed funds in stock has dropped below 1. Faced with the life and death choice of transformation or liquidation, the "deadline" of the principal guaranteed fund is no longer far away.
Principal guaranteed funds have left a strong mark in the fund industry. From the establishment of the first true capital guarantee fund in 2004 to the expiration of Huitianfu Baoxin's capital guarantee at the end of the third quarter of 2019, there is no capital guarantee fund in the world.
Past and present life of capital guaranteed fund
China Southern Fund is the first fund company in the industry to set up a principal guaranteed fund. In 2003, it set up the first principal guaranteed fund, South Hedge. At that time, the logic of establishing a capital guaranteed fund was "not only to ensure no loss, but also to obtain higher returns", which was positioned to win the excess returns of the stock market.
"In 2003, it was not called a principal guaranteed fund, but the quasi principal guaranteed strategy was called the South Hedge Appreciation Fund. At that time, there was no guarantee mechanism. Later, the real principal guaranteed fund was introduced, that is, the guarantee agency was introduced." A public fund person recalled.
According to the data, the first principal guaranteed fund with the word "principal guaranteed" in its name is the Yinhua principal guaranteed value-added fund established in 2004.
"At that time, the stock market was very depressed, and the issuance of equity products was difficult. We spent a long time thinking about how to develop products more suitable for people to invest. It took almost a year to make Yinhua break even." A fund company involved in Yinhua break even value-added design and issuance told reporters.
"At that time, it was the first guaranteed fund with a guarantee mechanism, and this product was very popular with investors. Although it was difficult to issue funds in those years, this product soon issued 6 billion yuan, because the guarantee limit was 6 billion yuan, and it was soon issued. Since then, it has been a small positive spring of fund issuance. Many institutions have successively issued large-scale funds, and some fund companies have also taken this opportunity to enter the 10 billion scale club. " The above public fund people also said.
However, in the bull market from 2006 to 2007, the breakeven terms on which the breakeven fund depends for its livelihood became a chicken bone. After the first three-year period of breakeven, some products of the first generation of breakeven funds were transformed into equity funds or hybrid funds.
In the big bear market around 2011, breakeven funds became "sweet cakes". However, the principal guaranteed funds issued in 2011 experienced a double killing of stocks and bonds, IPO suspension, etc., and most of the principal guaranteed funds did not gain much in 2014. The principal guaranteed fund issued in 2012 caught up with the bull market, and the annualized yield of most principal guaranteed products exceeded 10%. After the resumption of IPO, innovation has become one of the main strategies of the principal guaranteed fund.
After the beginning of 2016, with the help of circuit breaker mechanism, the stock market and fund market hit a new adjusted low. Most of the newly issued fund products of fund companies fell into difficult sales situations, and many launched measures to extend the raising period. In the weak, the principal guaranteed fund has become a hot product.
The blowout of capital guaranteed fund issuance is undoubtedly one of the biggest highlights of public funds in the first half of 2016. Statistics show that 56 principal guaranteed funds were established in the first half of the year, including 28 in the first quarter and 28 in the second quarter, accounting for 14.62% of the total number of new funds. The total issuance scale was 147.343 billion yuan, accounting for 37.87% of the total size of new funds.
step down from the stage of history
When the principal guaranteed fund is snapped up, some risks are emerging.
For fund companies, although the surviving principal guaranteed funds have adopted the joint and several liability guarantee mechanism, most of them have stipulated that the guarantor has unconditional recourse against the fund manager. The fund company will bear the final risk loss under such guarantee mechanism arrangement, which does not match the capital system of the fund company. Once the scale of the principal guaranteed fund expands rapidly, the potential risk loss may endanger the fund company system.
At the same time, the principal guaranteed fund itself has some problems. Although the name of the principal guaranteed fund literally describes the mechanism of "principal guaranteed" products to a certain extent, it may make investors form the expectation of "rigid redemption" of absolute principal guaranteed products, which is obviously inconsistent with breaking the regulatory requirements for rigid redemption. Moreover, in extreme cases, investors of capital guaranteed funds may still lose their principal.
Soon, the supervision of capital guaranteed funds was implemented. On February 10, 2017, the CSRC issued the revised version of the Guiding Opinions on Hedging Strategy Funds, which stipulates that the name of the principal guaranteed fund is changed to the hedge strategy fund. In accordance with the principle of new old division and transitional arrangement, the existing insured fund is still operated as agreed in the contract, and it is not allowed to increase the holdings of unqualified assets after expiration. After the expiration of the existing fund, the security mechanism shall be adjusted, and the unqualified fund shall be transferred to another type of fund or liquidated.
Principal guaranteed funds, which have been popular since the second half of 2015, will expire one after another in this year and next, and the trend of expiration of principal guaranteed funds will come soon. Statistics show that there are 71 principal guaranteed funds due this year, almost twice the amount due last year.
The head of a public offering fund product department told First Finance: "According to the current principal guaranteed fund related documents and the future regulatory trend, the principal guaranteed fund or hedge strategy fund does not have much room for development. According to the regulations, the products with real guarantors are gradually becoming scarce, and we even think that the products with real guarantors will tend to disappear in the future."
At the same time, the asset management VAT regulations implemented from January 1, 2018 undoubtedly gave capital guaranteed funds a "blow". According to the regulations, the principal guaranteed income is subject to VAT in any case; For non principal guaranteed income, no matter dividends or held to maturity, there is no need to pay tax. Among them, if the price difference between subscription, purchase and redemption is treated as financial commodity transfer, there is a need to pay tax.
Some insiders also believe that according to the new VAT regulations, the dividend and transfer differential income of capital protected public funds are subject to VAT, which further weakens the after tax income. Therefore, this also means that the competitiveness of publicly offered principal guaranteed funds has further declined and is expected to gradually transform or die out.
