Recently, a large amount of news related to former Noah Fund manager Cai Songsong began to appear on the internet, ranging from court hearings to being jailed, with varied reports. Later, a reporter successfully contacted Cai Songsong's personal phone, to which he responded that these were just "online statements" and he had nothing to say before hanging up the phone claiming he was busy.
According to investigations, Cai Songsong is indeed involved in a case reviewed by the Jinhua Intermediate People's Court, which concerns the crime of bribery to non-state functionaries involving Qu Quanru, Dong Boxiong, and Cai Songsong. The case officially went to court on March 27 and judgment has not yet been passed.
All three individuals in the case are practitioners in the securities industry. Qu Quanru and Cai Songsong were fund managers at Noah Securities, each serving for 6 years, while Dong Boxiong was a former employee of Guoxin Securities, having left the job in 2019.
Ace Fund Manager
Among these individuals, Cai Songsong is undoubtedly the most famous. He has served at the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin Feiteng Information Technology Co., Ltd., Huatai Securities, and finally joined Noah Fund Management Co., Ltd. in November 2017. By February 2019, he officially became the manager of the Noah Growth Mixed Securities Investment Fund, and a month later, took on the role of manager for the Noah Hexiong Flexible Allocation Mixed Securities Investment Fund.
Cai Songsong quickly made his mark as a fund manager, becoming famous for significant profits from the mid-field semiconductor sector, achieving a stellar annual performance of 95.44%, ranking at the top of his category.
However, the good times did not last, as the semiconductor sector he had been promoting did not achieve the initial explosive growth, leading to a sharp decrease in the performance of his funds. Cai Songsong's flagship product, the Noah Growth Mixed fund, faced a massive loss of 12.93 billion in 2022.
On September 29, 2023, Noah Fund announced Cai Songsong's resignation, with all products under his management taken over by someone else, citing personal reasons for his departure.
Another person involved in the case, Qu Quanru, was also a former fund manager at Noah. He graduated from Renmin University of China in 2012, joined Noah Fund officially in 2016 as an investment manager, and became a public fund manager in April 2019, leaving the position in the second half of 2022.
Legal Issues
The securities industry has always been a hotspot for legal issues. Zou Xiang, a fund manager at Noah Fund, failed to serve as a warning, sentenced in September 2022 for setting up "rat trading" and using insider information for trading, and bribery. From 2010 to 2015, he illegally profited by 23.550356 million yuan through non-public information and bribed two public security economic investigation officers with a total of 4.3 million yuan, ultimately receiving an 11-year prison sentence for multiple charges.
The fact that Cai Songsong's case was tried by the Intermediate People's Court in the first instance indicates the seriousness of the case, possibly involving a large amount of money, significant social impact, and a lengthy sentence. However, to date, measures like detention have not been taken against Cai Songsong, who was able to respond to the reporters’ inquiries over the phone.
