Another veteran of Xinhua Insurance is rumored to be out of touch.

“Investor Network” Wang Jianfan

Recently, Zhang Chi, the current general manager of Xinhua Asset, an asset management company owned by Xinhua Insurance, suddenly lost contact with the outside world.

This isn't the first time that the company's top management has had trouble. In November 2022, Wan Feng, the former chairman of Xinhua Insurance and a well-known figure in the life insurance industry, suddenly lost his connection, causing shock in the industry. The Wan Feng incident has yet to subside, and his successor, Li Quan, who has just retired for less than half a year, is also out of touch.

Frequent personnel changes and successive incidents of disconnection at the management level have cast a layer of uncertainty on the company's development.

Wan Feng is behind bars

Born in 1958, Wan Feng has been in the insurance industry for over 40 years.

Since graduating from the Department of Finance at the Jilin University of Finance and Trade in 1982, Wan Feng joined the insurance industry. He was the first domestic life insurance industry cadre to study and work overseas.

On August 26, 2014, Wan Feng officially resigned from his position in China Life Insurance, became the president of Xinhua Insurance, and succeeded Kang Dian as chairman in March 2016, starting his own “Wanfeng Era”.

At that time, it was a critical moment for Xinhua Insurance to reduce its quality and make every effort to transform. When Kang Dian took office, he mitigated capital shortages and achieved a listing in Xinhua. After more than six years in office, he proposed the two major themes of “business development” and “strategic transformation.” However, during this period, banking insurance accounted for a relatively large share, and the business structure was highly controversial.

In this context, at the end of 2016, Wan Feng proposed the “Five-Year Value Transformation Plan”, which is divided into “two steps”. 2016-2017 is a “transformation period”, focusing on adjusting the business structure and consolidating the foundation for development; 2018-2020 is a “development period”, which is committed to forming a new development trend.

After the transformation in 2016-2017, Xinhua Insurance eliminated premium payments and initially established a model mainly driven by renewal. The original insurance premium income has once again achieved double-digit growth, and the market ranking has steadily rebounded.

However, as one of the top three in the industry, Xinhua Insurance still faced pain during the transformation process, and its market share continued to decline, falling from 7.1% in 2015 to 5.2% in 2016 to 4.2% in 2017.

On January 16, 2019, Xinhua Insurance issued an announcement. Chairman Wan Feng resigned as chairman of the company and all other positions due to personal age.

After leaving Xinhua Insurance, Wan Feng went to HNA Life as the temporary manager; the company later changed its name to Dingcheng Life, and Wan Feng became the company's chairman. On August 31, 2020, Wan Feng submitted a retirement application to Dingcheng Life.

After retiring, Wan Feng focused on writing books and setting up stories. In November 2022, Wan Feng published the new book “Benefits, Building a High-Performance Insurance Agent Team”. The original plan was to hold a sharing session in Beijing in December, but it was eventually cancelled. Shortly thereafter, news broke that Wan Feng had lost his connection.

On June 21, 2023, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission reported that Wan Feng had been investigated for serious disciplinary violations. According to the report, Wan Feng illegally accepted property several times between the summer of 1998 and spring of 2020, totaling about 1.09 million yuan. On December 27, 2023, the Linyi Intermediate People's Court handed down a public verdict in the first instance of Wan Feng's bribery case. The court found Wan Feng guilty of taking bribes and sentenced him to six years and six months in prison.

Li Quan, suspected to be out of touch

Five months after Wan Feng left office, Xinhua Insurance nominated Li Quan as president.

Li Quan, born in 1963, obtained a master's degree in economics in monetary banking from the Graduate School of the People's Bank of China in 1988. Unlike most insurance company executives, Li Quan's career mainly focused on the investment field and was an early pioneer in the asset management market. He began his PE investment career in the 90s of the last century.

In 2010, Li Quan, then the executive deputy general manager of Bosch Fund, was admired by Kang Dian, then chairman of Xinhua Insurance, for his professional ability in asset management. He was invited to become the president of Xinhua Asset Management, responsible for the company's asset-side business, and officially switched from public funds to insurance asset management, and began a 13-year “Xinhua career”.

Unlike Wan Feng's return to the traditional insurance model when he was at the helm, Li Quan, an investor, proposed the transformation ideas of “second take-off” and “comprehensive development of value of scale” after taking over Xinhua Insurance. He led the new management, resolutely made major adjustments to the debt side, restarted the bargaining business where Wan Feng had vigorously reduced pressure before, and used the banking insurance channel as an important breakthrough. At the same time, Xinhua Insurance is also vigorously promoting the development of asset management business.

Under Li Quan's leadership, Xinhua Insurance's annual premium income increased from 130 billion yuan to 160 billion yuan, and the size of the company remained stable.

However, it cannot be overlooked that since 2022, the company's performance has declined significantly. According to annual report data, in 2023, the net profit of Xinhua Insurance fell the most among large listed insurers, down 59.48% year on year, and bottomed out with a total return on investment of 1.8% and a net return on investment of 3.4%. According to the latest disclosure, in the first quarter of 2024, Xinhua Insurance's net profit to mother fell again by 28.6% year on year.

Li Quan's bright moments didn't last long. In April 2023, he was approved as the chairman of Xinhua Insurance. However, just four months later, on August 22, 2023, Xinhua Insurance suddenly announced Li Quan's retirement. This “early retirement” incident once became the focus of attention in the industry. Until April of this year, Caixin and other media reported that Li Quan had lost touch.

Relax, the storm resumes

Unlike Wan Feng and Li Quan's problems that only surfaced after their retirement, Zhang Chi, 59, is still in the position of CEO of Xinhua Assets. It is currently unclear whether this involves Wan Feng and Li Quan's problems.

Zhang Chi, born in 1965, is a veteran in asset management with 30 years of experience in the financial industry. In August 2004, Zhang Chi switched from the securities industry to the insurance asset management industry and was the general manager of the fund investment department at China Life Insurance Assets for seven years. In March 2011, he “airborne” to join Xinhua Assets and was appointed as Deputy General Manager to become Li Quan's deputy.

Since December 2016, Zhang Chi has also served as the company's executive director; in October 2019, Li Quan was promoted to the president of Xinhua Insurance, Zhang Chi took over as general manager of Xinhua Assets, and has also served as the head of audit since December 2019, and temporarily as Chief Risk Officer and Head of Compliance since February 2024.

According to reports, Zhang Chi and Li Quan have been partners for many years, and the two have a tacit agreement. According to relevant media, Zhang Chi has previously been requested to cooperate in investigating the investment situation of Xinhua, but it is currently unclear what Zhang Chi is specifically involved in.

It is worth noting that at the end of last year, Xinhua Assets was fined 4.1 million yuan for nine illegal acts. Meanwhile, six responsible persons were also fined 410,000 yuan, including Long Xiangxin, assistant to the then CEO of Xinhua Asset Management, and Yang Fan, then vice president of Xinhua Asset Management.

After Wan Feng, the two presidents of Xinhua Assets lost touch one after another, which may unravel the tip of the iceberg of more potential problems.

Whether Li Quan and Zhang Chi have actually been investigated, how serious the problem is, and whether it will have a major impact on Xinhua Insurance, all of these are all pending further disclosure of relevant information. Investors' Network will continue to follow up on the report. (Produced by Thinking Finance) ■