Managers issuing first LOF
By Sun Min (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-08-23 09:07

China's first Listed Open-ended Fund (LOF) will be issued by Southern Fund Management Co tomorrow.

The fund, an open-ended fund that can be listed and transacted in the stock exchange, is another major innovation in China's fund industry and is expected to give investors more convenience in the purchase and trade of mutual funds.

Shenzhen Stock Exchange got regulator's approval to introduce such a fund last Tuesday, which means that fund management companies can apply to launch and list LOFs on the exchange.

The first LOF developed by Southern Fund Management is also an equity fund, according to sources with the fund company.

Investors can subscribe both via the exchange network or over the counter of the fund company, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and some agent securities firms. The issuing period will run untill September 29.

Compared to other mutual funds in the market, the biggest advantage of the LOF is that it enjoys a much wider sales and trade network, said Xue Jirui, an analyst with CITIC Securities Co.

Investors can purchase and trade the fund like a stock, so it would attract some stock traders, said Xue.

Moreover, if the first LOF proves successful, it would encourage more companies to produce similar products.

Sources said that a number of fund manage companies had already filed such applications to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

And if policy allows, even some of the existing closed-end funds can also be transferred into LOFs, which would give investors more convenience and choices, said Cai.

The launch of LOF will clear all the technical obstacles for the transfer.

So far, as the closed-end and open-ended funds have two separate issuing and custody systems in China, the two types of fund are traded in two separate markets.

Qi Bin, deputy director of the fund supervisory department of CSRC, the securities watchdog, said last week that the commission had been promoting the transfer of the closed-end funds to open-ended funds, but he also said that no timetable is set for the move.

Qi also said that risk control is a core part of the innovative efforts.

To ensure a smooth virgin launch of LOF, the Shenzhen Exchange also issued a series of rules on LOFs last week to guide the listing and trade of the funds.

But how much fresh fund the first LOF would exactly attract remains a big concern for the fund managers and industry observers.

Li Linling, an analyst with Ping'an Securities, said that LOF seems to be more appealing to small and medium-sized investors because of the lower cost in transaction and more efficient means of trading compared to other funds.

But Xue Jirui with CITIC Securities said that it is unlikely to see a flood-in of fresh funds, as the nature of the LOFs is pretty much the same with existing mutual funds and that the stock market performance is still unsatisfactory.

The bourses have undergone a correction since late April, which has greatly affected the initial public offerings of mutual funds since then, staging a sharp contrast to the fast expansion of the fund industry at the end of last year and in the first quarter of this year when the market rallied.

It has been much harder for fund managers to market new funds, said Cai.