Shareholders contribute both funds and personnel. Pioneer Fund increases its capital to 250 million yuan. What are the challenges for micro public offerings to self-rescue?

Ask AI · Pioneer Fund increases capital to 250 million yuan; how will the new management turn around the loss situation?

Interface News reporter | Du Meng

Recently, Pioneer Fund announced that it will increase its registered capital from 230 million yuan to 250 million yuan. On August 14, 2025, the company previously increased its registered capital from 205 million yuan to 230 million yuan.

In terms of equity structure, after this capital increase, the contribution amount of the major shareholder Compass Technology will rise from 215 million yuan to 225 million yuan, and its shareholding ratio will drop from 93.53% to 90.02%. Beijing Fuzhongda Investment’s contribution amount will increase from 11.48M yuan to 12.48M yuan, and its shareholding ratio of 4.99% will remain unchanged. Shenzhen Ruizhiyuan Investment’s contribution amount will increase from 3.4 million yuan to 12.48M yuan, and its shareholding ratio will rise from 1.48% previously to 4.99%.

According to Tianyancha data, Shenzhen Ruizhiyuan Investment is a limited partnership. Wang Chongkun holds 70%, Zhang Fan holds 29.92%, and Tan Sizhe holds 0.08%. Currently, Wang Chongkun is the chairman of Pioneer Fund, and Zhang Fan is the company’s general manager.

Wind data shows that as of the end of last year, Pioneer Fund’s scale of public offering fund management was 2.95B yuan. There are 9 fund products in total (A/C shares combined for calculation). Among them, the scale of bond funds was 2.49B yuan, accounting for 84.4% of the company’s total scale. The scale of money market funds was 408 million yuan, and the scale of hybrid funds was 51 million yuan.

From the scale of individual funds, the company only has two pure bond funds—Pioneer Huiying and Pioneer Boying Pure Bond—with scales of 1.29B yuan and 1.2B yuan, respectively. In addition, there are 6 funds with a scale below 200 million yuan.

Interface News reporter analysis found that since August 2019, the company’s number of funds has remained at 9 and there have been no new launches to date. At the end of the second quarter of 2021, the company’s managed assets reached 5.05B yuan, and by the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, the company’s managed assets had fallen to below 3.0 billion yuan.

On March 18, 2025, Compass (300803.SZ) acquired 33.31% equity in Pioneer Fund held by Dalian Yalian for 161 million yuan. After that, its shareholding ratio reached 95.01% and it obtained absolute control. The 2025 annual report of Compass shows that in that year, Pioneer Fund’s operating revenue was 15.28 million yuan, operating profit was -35.2221 million yuan, and net profit was -27.0481 million yuan.

The change in equity subsequently led to a complete overhaul of the management team. On March 1, 2025, Pioneer Fund welcomed its newly appointed general manager Zhang Fan; on May 16, the newly appointed chairman Wang Chongkun officially took office.

With the completion of the capital increase, on March 21 this year, Pioneer Fund announced that Zhang Fan would serve concurrently as the financial officer and chief information officer. Public information shows that Zhang Fan previously served as vice president and general manager assistant at New Era Securities, and director general manager of the brokerage business management headquarters. From June 2017 to April 2024, he served as general manager of Rongtong Fund.

Since 2025, multiple fund companies have successively reported capital increase news. On August 11, 2025, Nanhua Futures (603093.SH) announced a decision to increase the capital of its wholly owned subsidiary Nanhua Fund by 100 million yuan. After this matter is completed, Nanhua Fund’s registered capital will increase from 250 million yuan to 350 million yuan, and the company’s shareholding ratio in Nanhua Fund will remain 100%.

On July 31, 2025, Huiquan Fund announced that it would increase capital. The company’s founder Liang Yongqiang, chairman Meng Zhaoxia, and vice general manager Zhai Leji, used cash contributions to inject a total of 4.68 million yuan into the company, increasing its registered capital from 100 million yuan to 104.68 million yuan. This is also the first capital increase since this “individual-run” fund company was established 5 years ago.

“Basically, the reason we increased registered capital is that the company is burning money too fast.” A vice general manager of a certain individual-run public offering fund told Interface News. “Increasing registered capital can ensure the company continues to meet regulatory and compliance requirements, and avoid having its business constrained.”

The executives above said that public offerings are a human-capital-intensive industry, and the consumption of capital is mainly reflected in labor costs (primarily investment research and team building), system upgrades, market promotion, and so on. “Recently, a few peers have also been applying to launch their first ETF, and we are envious, but we really can’t do it. Although ETFs remove investment research expenses, the investment trading system, valuation system, clearing system, risk control system, as well as index usage fees, sales expenses, and so on are all a huge sum of money. We roughly estimate that the annual fixed cost for a single ETF is more than 2 million yuan.” He said.

Interface News learned that Article 6 of the “Administrative Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Managers of Publicly Offered Securities Investment Funds” stipulates that the registered capital of a public fund management company must not be less than 100 million yuan, and it must be paid in with proprietary monetary funds from legitimate sources. If a company’s net assets are below 40 million yuan, or if the company’s liquid assets available to use are below 20 million yuan and also below its business expenditures in the prior accounting year, the CSRC may suspend its business application.

“Unless it’s absolutely necessary, shareholders will not increase capital into the fund company.” A person from the public-offering fund market department at a Beijing-based company told Interface News. “The fund company’s main income is management fees. Under normal circumstances, development is supported through management-fee income. Relying purely on shareholder capital increases is neither realistic nor sustainable. From a shareholder’s perspective, if the fund company itself has ‘self-blood-creating’ capability, there is no need to ‘transfuse’—because after shareholders put money in, it basically needs to be locked in for a period of time, and liquidity is lacking. Moreover, after shareholders increase capital, they will put very clear requirements on the fund company’s performance. If those targets can’t be met, the entire management team may face a ‘major shake-up.’”

For smaller fund companies, they cannot rely solely on shareholders to “transfuse blood.” More importantly, they need to improve their “self-blood-creating” capability through investment research upgrades, channel expansion, and so on, so they can truly break through industry barriers and find room for survival and development.