More than half a dozen years later, a wave of 63-month closed-end amortized cost bond funds is being filed en masse, with smaller and mid-sized fund managers leading the charge. Notably, this concentrated filing aligns with regulatory efforts to support differentiated development paths for smaller asset managers.
In June, the Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) spoke at the 2026 Lujiazui Forum, announcing a series of measures to support the healthy and standardized growth of small fund companies. These measures include a focus on category-based regulation, highlighting unique characteristics, and offering appropriate preferential treatment in product development and business approvals to actively foster differentiated development.
The filing period for all products is 63 months. On August 14, the CSRC website showed that 15 small and medium-sized fund managers, including Baijia Fund, Hongtu Innovation Fund, and Caixin Fund, collectively filed for 63-month closed-end bond funds, all of which have entered the application materials receiving stage. Among these, 11 are domestic institutions: Baijia Fund, Hongtu Innovation Fund, Caixin Fund, Pengan Fund, Xinghua Fund, Xinghe Fund, Yimi Fund, Huaxi Fund, Guorong Fund, Shangzheng Fund, and Zhuque Fund. The remaining four are foreign institutions: Neuberger Berman Fund, Allianz Fund, AllianceBernstein Fund, and BlackRock Fund.
An amortized cost bond fund values certain financial assets at amortized cost, provided specific conditions are met. "Closed-end" means the product does not allow daily subscriptions or redemptions during the contractually agreed-upon closed period. The filing period for this batch is 63 months, or over five years. This extended lock-up period reduces the daily redemption pressure on the fund, allowing managers to better match asset and liability durations. It also provides a foundation for implementing a hold-to-maturity strategy and allocating bond assets with maturities matching the product's duration. Consequently, these products are inherently more suited to the medium-to-long-term allocation needs of institutional capital rather than high-liquidity trading demands.
Compared to leading fund companies, smaller and mid-sized managers often face intense competition in areas like ETFs and active equity funds, which are constrained by brand recognition, distribution channels, and research resources. Therefore, many institutions choose to differentiate by offering unique products. Based on current market data, this product model has established a stable base. According to Wind data, there are currently 178 closed-end amortized cost bond funds from 98 fund managers, with a total scale of approximately 1.21 trillion yuan. Of these, 164 were launched between 2019 and 2020, accounting for over 90%. Among the 178 funds, 24 have the same 63-month lock-up period as the current filings, with a total latest scale of about 192.42 billion yuan, a 15.53% increase from 166.55 billion yuan at the end of 2025.
A public fund operations manager at a Shenzhen-based fund sales company noted that for small fund companies, amortized cost bond funds help expand institutional business and stabilize product lines. Given the intense competition in active equity funds and ETFs, specialized fixed-income products offer a path for differentiation. However, the long-term competitiveness of such products will depend on fixed-income research, liability management, and institutional client service capabilities.
Promoting differentiated development. Amortized cost bond funds typically adopt a hold-to-maturity approach and use long-term closed-end operations to improve asset-liability duration matching. For small and mid-sized managers, these products provide a relatively stable fixed-income product line and help strengthen institutional client relationships. However, opening the product approval channel does not lower the industry's competitive barriers. An industry expert mentioned that while the new scale from these products could create demand for bond allocations matching the lock-up period, the actual impact depends on the final number of approvals, fundraising scale, and subsequent portfolio construction pace.
The expert added that this concentrated filing aligns with the policy direction of supporting differentiated development for small fund managers. For these firms, the current filing window is just a starting point. The core of differentiated competition will be whether they can leverage this opportunity to strengthen their research, risk management, and investment capabilities, and build a long-term client base. As the product approval process progresses, competition among small and mid-sized managers around specialized fixed-income products will shift from "having a product" to "being able to manage it well." Against the backdrop of the public fund industry accelerating its transition from scale expansion to high-quality development, this wave of 63-month closed-end bond fund filings provides a new lens for observing the differentiated development of small fund companies.