On May 7, 2025, the China Securities Regulatory Commission released the "Action Plan for Promoting the High Quality Development of Public Funds" (referred to as the "Action Plan"). In the past six months, the public fund industry has been transitioning from a focus on scale to a focus on returns. With the continuous promotion of the reform of public fund fee rates, the new model of floating management fee funds has "grown from nothing" and entered the stage of normalized issuance, deepening the binding with investors' interests. In addition, team collaboration has become an industry consensus, and the construction of investment research capabilities continues to be strengthened. Rate orientation: Strengthen the binding with investors' interests. The Action Plan emphasizes optimizing the fund operation mode and establishing a sound mechanism for linking fund company income and returns with investor returns. Fee rate reform is an important link. On September 5th, the China Securities Regulatory Commission released the "Regulations on the Management of Sales Expenses for Publicly Offered Securities Investment Funds (Draft for Comments)", which aims to address the problems in the field of public fund sales and guide market entities to shift from a scale oriented approach to an investor return oriented approach. This also marks the third stage of the reform of public fund fee rates. The innovation exploration on the product side is advancing synchronously. On May 23rd, the first batch of 26 new model floating management fee funds were approved and subsequently launched for issuance. The first batch of new model floating management fee funds have all been in operation for three months, and as of November 5th, the average return of these funds since their establishment has exceeded 11%. Among them, the Huashang Zhiyuan Return Hybrid Fund, E Fund Growth and Progress Hybrid Fund, Jiashi Growth and Win Win Hybrid Fund, and Xin'ao Advantageous Industry Hybrid Fund have all achieved returns of over 35% since their establishment. The current new model of floating management fee funds has achieved normalized registration, and the camp is rapidly growing. As of November 6th, 45 new model floating management fee funds have been established, with a total issuance size exceeding 53 billion yuan. At the same time, the core direction of asset management based on benchmarks has been further strengthened. At the end of October, the China Securities Regulatory Commission released the "Guidelines for Performance Comparison Benchmarks of Publicly Offered Securities Investment Funds (Draft for Comments)", and the China Securities Investment Fund Industry Association simultaneously released the "Operating Rules for Performance Comparison Benchmarks of Publicly Offered Securities Investment Funds (Draft for Comments)". According to an interview with Shanghai Securities News, the list of benchmark elements for performance comparison, including Class 1 and Class 2, has been issued recently. The standardization of performance comparison benchmarks will reshape the industry ecosystem from multiple dimensions, greatly benefiting the capital market, fund managers' asset management, investors' investment experience, and injecting new momentum into the high-quality development of public funds. ”Southern Fund stated in an interview with Shanghai Securities News that the standardization of performance comparison benchmarks will promote a more stable investment style and behavior of the fund, which is conducive to enhancing investors' holding experience. Investment research oriented: Focusing on platform based system construction, investment research capability is the core competitiveness and foundation of fund companies. The Action Plan proposes to strengthen the construction of core investment research capabilities. Establish an evaluation index system for the investment and research capabilities of fund companies, guide them to continuously strengthen their investment in human resources, systems, and other resources, accelerate the construction of a "platform based, integrated, and multi strategy" investment and research system, support the fund manager team management model, and expand and strengthen the investment and research team. Teamwork is becoming an industry consensus, and multiple fund companies are accelerating the construction of integrated investment research systems. Specifically, the China Europe Fund is intensifying efforts to upgrade its investment research system towards specialization, industrialization, and digitization. Among them, the "Five Element Stock Selection Model" implemented by the investment research team breaks down the logic of stock selection into specific elements and quantifiable standards, allowing each link to have clear definitions and consensus, forming an internal "common language". Tianhong Fund has built an investment research system that is characterized by a streamlined investment research production process, interactive decision-making platform, and intelligent key nodes. Yinhua Fund implements the "Little Giant Plan" in its investment department, clarifying the strengths and advantages of fund managers through their style profile, strengthening the stability of their investment style, and fixing the style of fund managers through mechanisms, systems, and assessments. The investment research system of the public fund industry is also showing positive changes in personnel structure optimization. A recent research report released by Guotai Haitong Securities shows that the years of experience and investment experience of public active equity fund managers are showing a significant upward trend, and their years of experience before starting to invest are also increasing. This reflects that the overall experience of investors and researchers in the public fund industry is richer, and the stability of personnel is also improving. In addition, fund companies are also guiding fund managers towards long-term and value investing. According to interviews with reporters, some fund companies have reformed their performance evaluation mechanisms, increasing the weight of medium and long-term returns and paying more attention to the real returns of investors. Pattern optimization: In response to the industry development pattern, the Action Plan proposes to support the innovative development of high-quality top fund companies, promote the dual improvement of asset management and comprehensive wealth management capabilities. Develop high-quality development demonstration plans for small and medium-sized fund companies, supporting characteristic operations and differentiated development. From the current development of the industry, the head effect has become very significant. Among them, E Fund and Huaxia Fund both have a management scale of over 2 trillion yuan, and their scale is still showing a rapid growth trend, becoming the "vanguard" of the development of the public fund industry. At the same time, the path of characteristic development continues to expand. Since June, multiple public fund subsidiaries have been approved, including sales subsidiaries, overseas subsidiaries, operation service subsidiaries, etc., and are working diligently in segmented tracks. Guotai Haitong Securities analyst Ni Yunting stated in a research report that in the era of high-quality development, the development pattern of the public fund industry will be further optimized. The development direction of top fund companies and small and medium-sized fund companies in the future will be significantly differentiated. Top fund companies will be positioned as comprehensive fund companies that are "large and comprehensive", while small and medium-sized fund companies will be positioned as characteristic fund companies that are "small and beautiful". Specifically, comprehensive fund companies actively layout other types of products and innovative products while maintaining their leading position in product lines. When other types of products encounter development opportunities, they use their own resources and channels to quickly expand their advantageous areas, thereby creating a comprehensive leading advantage; Characteristic fund companies should combine personalized resource endowments such as shareholder resources or team expertise, and use differentiated development strategies to deeply cultivate advantageous areas, and break through at the appropriate time through characteristic product lines. The Action Plan promotes the comprehensive upgrading of the public fund industry from product design, customer service to corporate governance. In the next three to five years, the public fund industry will present a competitive pattern of strong players remaining strong, and active and passive equity funds developing together. ”Ping An Fund told a reporter from Shanghai Securities News. (New Society)