A hundred-billion private equity firm, Chengyang Investment, leads the pack with holdings of more than 7.8 billion units, with these private equity firms boldly buying ETFs.

Interface News reporter | Longli

As 2025 fund annual reports are gradually released, private fund holdings are also becoming known.

Wind data shows that, using a statistical benchmark in which the holder name clearly includes the two characters “private placement,” as of the 2025 annual reports, among the top ten holders of 495 listed funds, private placement products appeared, with a cumulative holding balance of 15.614 billion units.

Among them, the most favored private placement products are Yinhe Dayi Li A (“cash management tool”), (511880.SH). In its top ten holders, there are a total of 5 private placement products, with a cumulative holding balance as high as 7.135 billion units. Coming in second is Huaxia Hang Seng Internet Technology Industry ETF (513330.SH). In its top ten holders, there are 2 private placement products, with a cumulative holding balance of 0.85 billion units.

In addition, in the top ten holders of five ETFs—including Huaxia CSI 300 ETF (510330.SH), E Fund CSI China Securities AI Theme ETF (159819.SZ), Harvest CSI Rare Metals Theme ETF (562800.SH), Guotai CSI All-Index Securities Company ETF (512880.SH), and Harvest CSI Chengtong Digital Economy State-Owned Enterprises ETF (159389.SZ)—the cumulative holding balance of private placement products is also all above 200 million units. Meanwhile, among the other 13 funds, the cumulative holding balance of private placement products in their top ten holders exceeds 100 million units.

Li Ning, chief research analyst at Umeili Investment, said in an interview with Interface News that private placements may consider multiple aspects when allocating to fund-type products. For example, in terms of position and liquidity management, they can quickly increase or reduce holdings to adjust overall equity positioning, take on large subscription and redemption flows, smooth pressure on cash flows, and enable more refined management of idle funds. In terms of hedging risks + optimizing portfolio volatility, they can diversify the risk of “black swan” events affecting individual stocks and conduct industry/style hedging. In terms of arbitrage and transaction-cost optimization, they can reduce trading impact costs and research costs, and some ETFs can use enhanced strategies by combining securities lending and options.

Li Ning also told Interface News that private placements can use core positions to pick individual stocks and earn excess returns, allocate to industry ETFs and broad-based ETFs as a base to capture market-average returns, use ETFs to quickly set up positions in less popular/high-barrier segments, and in rotation-style market conditions use ETFs to perform band trading arbitrage. In addition, private placements can directly invest in U.S. and Hong Kong stocks; opening accounts, foreign exchange, and clearing are complex, so they can allocate to low-cost overseas-market ETFs such as the Nasdaq 100 Index ETF and the Hang Seng Tech ETF. They can also allocate to commodity ETFs such as gold, crude oil, and nonferrous metals to deal with inflation, geopolitical conflicts, and commodity price-hike cycles, building a portfolio to protect against inflation.

Which private placements are buying fund products in large amounts?

Wind data shows that, as of the 2025 annual reports, among the private placement products appearing in the top ten holders of the aforementioned 495 listed funds, there are a total of 235 private placement asset managers involved. Among them, 12 private placement asset managers have cumulative holding balances of more than 100 million units.

The “billion-yuan” private placement firm Chengyang Investment leads the list with a cumulative holding balance of 7.876 billion units.

Chengyang Investment holds 24 listed funds in its portfolio in a concentrated manner. Among them, most of its positions are concentrated in Yinhe Dayi Li A. Three of the company’s products appear among the top ten holders of this fund, with a cumulative holding balance of 4.445 billion units. The company’s second-largest concentrated holding fund is Huaxia Hang Seng Internet Technology Industry ETF. Two of its products appear among the fund’s top ten holders, with a cumulative holding balance of 0.85 billion units.

In addition, funds with Chengyang Investment holdings exceeding 200 million units also include Huaxia CSI 300 ETF, Harvest CSI Rare Metals Theme ETF, and Guotai CSI All-Index Securities Company ETF; funds with holdings exceeding 150 million units also include E Fund Hang Seng H-Share ETF (510900.SH), Huatai-Pinebridge CSI 300 ETF (510300.SH), Harvest CSI 300 ETF (159919.SZ), and Southern CSI Shenwan Nonferrous Metals ETF (512400.SH), among others.

Chengyang Investment is a secondary-market private placement platform under China Chengtong Holdings Group. It was established in December 2017, and by October 2025 its managed scale surpassed the 10 billion yuan mark.

As of the 2025 annual reports, the “Hengyi Select” under “Hengyi Xingying,” a “risk-capital-backed” billion-yuan private placement, and “Beijing Lexiong Kaitai” under Beijing Lexiong, another private placement firm with a managed scale of 50–100 billion yuan, both also appear among the top ten holders of Yinhe Dayi Li A, with holding balances of 1.953 billion units and 0.738 billion units, respectively. Among them, “Hengyi Select” also holds 10.4077 million units of Huabao Cash Dividend? “Huabao Cash Profit A” (511990.SH).

Shanghai Ninyuan Asset ranks first among private placements controlled by natural persons, with a cumulative holding balance of 816 million units. Moreover, the company’s layout in the fund market shows a clear “spray-and-cast wide net” characteristic. Its products appear among the top ten holders of a total of 138 listed funds, and among them, 119 funds have cumulative holding balances below 10 million units.

Shanghai Ninyuan Asset especially favors cross-border ETFs. Its top three concentrated holding funds are Tianhong Hang Seng Technology ETF (520920.SH), Huatai-Pinebridge CSI Korea Exchange China-Korea Semiconductor ETF (513310.SH), and Invesco Great Wall Hang Seng Consumption ETF (513970.SH), with cumulative holding balances of 56.6841 million units, 46.4686 million units, and 31.8233 million units, respectively. In addition, the company’s products also appear among the top ten holders of several other cross-border ETFs.

Separately, the cumulative holding balances of Hangzhou Beizhi private placement and Beijing Juyu Boundary private placement are 319 million units and 247 million units, respectively. Shanghai Cheng’an Asset, Zhejiang Ai’erde Investment, and Shanghai Chanlong Asset have cumulative holding balances of 188 million units, 150 million units, and 139 million units, respectively.

The holding situation of “billion-yuan” private placements has long drawn significant attention. Wind data shows that, in addition to Chengyang Investment and Hengyi Xingying, three other billion-yuan private placement firms—Shenzhen Ritou Investment, Shanghai Jinde private placement, and Shanghai Hesheng Asset—also have fund holding amounts of more than 100 million units.

Among them, Ritou Investment holds 113 million units of E Fund CSI Overseas Internet ETF (513050.SH) in a concentrated manner. The products of Shanghai Jinde private placement appear in the top ten holders of a total of six listed funds; except for Guotai Junxin? “Guotai CSI 5-Year Treasury Bond ETF” (511010.SH) with holdings of 343,200 units, the other five funds are all REITs funds. For Shanghai Hesheng Asset, all six that enter the top ten holders are REITs funds.

In addition, some private placements were not included in the aforementioned statistical scope because their company and product names do not explicitly contain the two characters “private placement,” which also means that the actual holdings in the listed funds in private placements’ 2025 annual reports are even more than the amounts reflected in the above statistics.

Among them, for example, Linjing Asset Management. According to Wind data, its “Linjing Jianjian” and “Linjing Fengshou” appear in the top ten holders of Huaxia Hang Seng Technology ETF (513180.SH) and Huaxia Nasdaq 100 ETF (513300.SH), respectively, with holding balances of 345 million units and 45.4898 million units.

There is also, for example, Orient Hongwan Investment. Its three products—“CR Oriental Hongwan No. 9, 10, 11”—have a cumulative holding balance of 53.9756 million units of AA? “Huai’an Nasdaq 100 ETF” (159632.SZ); “Orient Hongwan Vision” holds 24.7034 million units of Invesco Great Wall Nasdaq Technology Market Cap Weighted ETF (159509.SZ).