Is it because of too many losses? "Photovoltaic leader" Zheng Chengran is stepping down from product management for the first time, with multiple products only remaining worth five or six cents each.

Cailian Press, March 20 (Reporter: Feng Qijuan) After experiencing a halving of performance and capital outflows, “photovoltaic leader” Zheng Chengran has resigned from public fund products for the first time.

According to the latest announcement from GF Fund, due to work arrangements, Zheng Chengran has resigned from GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund as of March 18, now solely managed by Su Wenjie. This is the first product Zheng Chengran has resigned from since he began managing public funds. Based on the scale at the end of last year, Zheng Chengran may still be among the group of fund managers managing over 10 billion.

Behind the resignation is a dual predicament of both scale and performance having “halved.” Zheng Chengran has managed the GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund for more than 3 years and 7 months, with a return loss of nearly 40%. The latest unit net value has fallen to 0.5945 yuan, becoming a “60-cent fund.” As a product with a three-year holding period, it faced concentrated redemptions after the end of its closed period, with the scale shrinking by more than 60% compared to its initial establishment.

Before opening for redemptions, GF Fund had already appointed Su Wenjie to co-manage the GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund with Zheng Chengran.

Starting in 2025, Zheng Chengran has successively appointed fund managers for the other three products under his management. It was also in this year that products under Zheng Chengran generally shifted from an extreme focus on the new energy sector to a more diversified industry allocation. However, significant losses have become a reality, making it difficult to restore investor trust. Besides the GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund, the unit net values of GF Chengxiang and GF Xingcheng have also halved, both becoming “50-cent funds.”

As of the end of last year, the total scale of products managed by Zheng Chengran had shrunk by more than 70% from its historical peak, diminishing the halo effect of the star fund manager, and the market chose to vote with its feet. In summary, the products under Zheng Chengran were mostly launched at industry peaks, benefiting from explosive growth in scale, but also faced deep retracements in net value and significant scale reductions due to heavy investments in the photovoltaic sector experiencing drastic adjustments.

At the same time, it is evident that GF Fund is attempting to salvage the declining trend of its products and retain capital by appointing additional managers, promoting strategy diversification, and ultimately changing managers.

Heavy investment in photovoltaics for many years, with scale and performance “halved”

The GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund was established in July 2022, with a combined scale of 3.579 billion yuan for both A and C shares at its inception. By the end of last year, the combined scale of this product had fallen to 1.328 billion yuan, a decrease of 2.251 billion yuan, shrinking by more than 60%.

As a product with a three-year holding period, the GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund completed its three-year closed period on July 26 last year and opened for redemption.

After the product was unlocked, the redemption pressure was concentratedly released. Data shows that the total fund shares of the GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund dropped from 3.159 billion shares before opening to 2.002 billion shares by the end of 2025, a cumulative decrease of 1.157 billion shares, representing a reduction of 36.6%. According to Wind statistics, this product experienced total redemptions of 1.171 billion shares in the third and fourth quarters of last year, accounting for 37.07% of the total shares before opening. Meanwhile, subscription performance remained sluggish, with a subscription scale of only about 14 million shares during the same period, showing significant net outflow characteristics.

Upon analysis, according to the Shenwan secondary industry classification, the heavy asset allocation of the GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund has undergone a transition from “heavy investment in photovoltaics” to diversified allocation, which can be roughly divided into three stages:

As a player in the new energy sector, Zheng Chengran’s management of the GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund concentrated on the photovoltaic sector in 2022 and 2023. By the end of the third and fourth quarters of 2022, there were 8 and 10 photovoltaic equipment stocks among the top ten holdings of this product, respectively. The trend of high concentration continued throughout 2023, with photovoltaic stocks occupying nine to ten positions among the top ten holdings at the end of each quarter.

By 2024, the GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund attempted to diversify its allocation, with the number of photovoltaic equipment stocks in the top ten holdings decreasing to 7-8. During the same period, aquaculture stocks entered the top ten holdings, occupying 1-3 positions, forming a “photovoltaics as the mainstay, aquaculture as a supplement” pattern. However, photovoltaics remained the absolute mainstay, with limited diversification.

Starting in 2025, the trend of diversification in the GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund accelerated significantly, with the number of photovoltaic equipment stocks consistently shrinking to 7, 6, 3, and 2 by the end of each quarter, and the proportion of heavy holdings clearly declining. Beginning in the first quarter, the top ten holdings of this product transitioned towards a diverse layout, gradually increasing allocation to multiple sectors including medical services, grid equipment, communication equipment, non-ferrous metals, and beer, significantly easing reliance on a single sector.

To cope with the pressure on product performance and continuous scale loss, GF Fund is promoting a shift from single-sector holdings to diversified allocation while intensively appointing fund managers to form a co-management model.

In 2025, three products under Zheng Chengran successively appointed fund managers, with GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund appointing Su Wenjie, GF Xingcheng appointing Liu Bin, and GF Chengxiang simultaneously appointing Guan Fuqin and Ye Shuai. Earlier, GF New Energy Selection appointed Mao Kun in May 2023 to co-manage with Zheng Chengran.

As of now, among the seven products managed by Zheng Chengran, four are solely managed by him, namely GF Xinxiang Flexible Allocation, GF High-end Manufacturing, GF Growth New Momentum, and GF Carbon Neutrality Theme Initiation.

Reduced to a “50-cent fund,” beginning diversification

In fact, the management difficulties faced by Zheng Chengran do not solely stem from the GF Growth Power Three-Year Fund.

According to Wind statistics, as of the end of last year, the total scale of the eight products under Zheng Chengran’s management was 14.168 billion yuan, having shrunk by 70.63% from its historical peak. As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, the total scale of the four products under Zheng Chengran was 48.235 billion yuan. Since then, the scale under his management has shown a quarterly decline.

Since May 2020, Zheng Chengran has begun managing public products, having managed a total of eight products to date. According to Choice statistics, among these eight products, five have experienced negative returns. The latest data shows that during Zheng Chengran’s tenure, GF Xingcheng A, GF Chengxiang A, GF Growth Power Three-Year A, GF High-end Manufacturing A, and GF Growth New Momentum A suffered losses of 50.30%, 47.57%, 39.11%, 23.64%, and 18.74%, respectively, with performance returns ranking among the bottom 10 in their categories.

At the same time, the performance returns of GF Carbon Neutrality Theme Initiation A, GF Xinxiang A, and GF New Energy Selection A were 92.31%, 56.43%, and 27.4%, respectively. Among them, the performance return of GF Carbon Neutrality Theme Initiation ranked among the top 10 in its category, while the latter two ranked among the top 40.

It is worth mentioning that as a theme fund in the new energy industry, GF Carbon Neutrality Theme Initiation was established in June 2024, coinciding with the avoidance of the previous continuous decline period in the photovoltaic sector and capitalizing on subsequent market recovery.

Other products have not been so fortunate, as many were established at market peaks, with several funds “peaking upon establishment,” leading to continuous scale shrinkage.

The product with the largest loss, GF Xingcheng, was established in January 2021, with a combined scale of 11.954 billion yuan at its inception, but the scale has gradually declined quarterly. Within a year, this product’s scale halved, dropping to 1.874 billion yuan by the end of last year, a reduction of 10.08 billion yuan, or 84.32%.

The latest unit net value of GF Xingcheng has fallen to 0.4970 yuan, becoming a “50-cent fund.” However, the proportion of institutional holdings in this product has increased in recent years. The 2024 annual report and the 2025 interim report show institutional holdings at 26.89% and 28.62%, respectively, whereas this proportion was previously below 1%.

GF Chengxiang was established in February 2021, with a combined scale of 7.923 billion yuan at its inception, which then gradually declined. By the end of last year, the scale of this product was 1.54 billion yuan, having decreased by 6.383 billion yuan, or 80.56%. The latest unit net value of GF Chengxiang has also fallen to 0.5243 yuan, making it a “50-cent fund.”

In fact, other products under Zheng Chengran are experiencing continuous withdrawals by institutions. GF High-end Manufacturing was established in September 2017, reaching a historical peak scale of 25.744 billion yuan by the end of the first quarter of 2021, but the scale has gradually declined, dropping to 4.811 billion yuan by the end of last year, a decrease of 20.933 billion yuan, or 81.31%. Data shows that the proportion of institutional holdings in this product also reached a historical high of 60.58% in mid-2020, but has gradually declined, with this proportion at 13.1% by mid-2025.

Upon analysis, starting from the third quarter of 2021, the proportion of photovoltaic equipment stocks among the top ten holdings of GF Chengxiang and GF Xingcheng has continuously increased, with concentrated heavy holdings in photovoltaic equipment stocks from 2022 to 2024, where related stocks dominated the top ten holdings. Beginning in 2025, these two products gradually shifted towards diversified allocation, starting to layout across multiple industries.

It can be observed that multiple products managed by Zheng Chengran, such as GF Xinxiang, GF Chengxiang, and GF Xingcheng, like GF Growth Power, have all experienced a transition from focusing on photovoltaics to industry diversification.