曹名长新动向！“公奔私”自立门户再添一员！

Ask AI · How does Cao Mingchang plan to continue the brilliance of public funds into private equity entrepreneurship?

On the evening of March 14, 2026, a message quietly spread in the financial circle: after more than a year leaving the public fund stage, veteran value investor Cao Mingchang officially announced the establishment of Shanghai Pujiao Private Fund Management Co., Ltd. The day before, the company had completed registration with the Asset Management Association of China.

Veteran Value Investor Founding a Private Fund!

Cao Mingchang’s investment career can be seen as a microcosm of the development of value investing in Chinese public funds. Since entering the securities industry in 1996, he has worked at Junan Securities, Xinhua Fund, China Europe Fund, and other institutions, with over 18 years as an investment manager.

During his time at Xinhua Fund, the Xinhua Preferred Dividend A performed outstandingly over nearly nine years, making him famous. After joining China Europe Fund in 2015, he quickly became a core figure in equity investment, alongside Zhou Weiweng, earning the nickname “China Europe’s Four Kings,” managing assets once exceeding 20 billion yuan, and becoming synonymous with deep value investing.

In 2019 and 2020, as the market pursued core assets and many value-oriented fund managers shifted strategies, Cao Mingchang chose to remain “lonely and steadfast.” He firmly believes that value investing has two core dimensions: one is the value created by a company’s fundamentals, and the other is buying at a sufficiently undervalued market price. Among these, he places greater emphasis on valuation. This near-stubborn “picking up cigarette butts” style, while facing pressure during certain market phases, helped investors maintain relatively low drawdowns in weak markets.

Cao Mingchang’s “public to private” transition is not impulsive but a well-thought-out continuation of value investing. In his “Letter to Investors,” he wrote that the company’s name “Pujiao” embodies his entrepreneurial original intention. “‘Pu’ is uncarved jade, symbolizing companies that are undervalued and dusty but have great potential, representing his commitment to value and resisting short-term noise; ‘Jiao’ means bridge, intending to use value investing as a bridge to channel long-term capital into truly promising companies, achieving a healthy interaction between funds and the real economy.” He stated, “Investing is never a 100-meter sprint but a lifelong marathon.” This sentence summarizes his past and encourages him for the future.

“Public to private” entrepreneurs reaching top-tier scale: 29!

In fact, Cao Mingchang’s choice is a classic example of the recent “public to private” trend. According to Zero2IPO Private Equity Data, as of the end of February 2026, there were 859 fund managers transitioning from public to private funds. However, unlike some managers joining established private firms, Cao Mingchang chose a more difficult path—founding his own private fund. This route tests personal branding, fundraising ability, and company operations comprehensively. After leaving the strong research and sales platform of public funds, whether his past halo can continue to shine in the vast private fund universe remains to be seen, requiring time and performance to verify.

In the “public to private” wave, many have successfully established their own firms and grown private fund management scales beyond 5 billion yuan. According to Zero2IPO Private Equity Data, by the end of February 2026, 29 fund managers who transitioned from public to private funds had achieved this scale. Among the early representatives are Zhao Jun of Fresh Capital, Jiang Hui of Xing Shi Investment, Liang Wentao of Honghu Private Equity, all of whom started their private fund careers before 2010 and are well-known in the industry.

For example, Liang Wentao, founder of Honghu Private Equity, holds a Master’s degree in Management from Peking University and a Ph.D. in Management from Tsinghua University. From 2002 to 2007, he served as a fund manager at E Fund, managing the Ke Hui Fund and Stable Growth Fund, and also led the research department. During this period, he received awards such as the Best Performance Fund Manager and Fund Manager Research Award from E Fund. He founded Honghu Private Equity in 2010, and the company’s scale has now exceeded 10 billion yuan. According to Zero2IPO data, the 10 products with performance data in the past year have an average return of ***.

[In compliance with regulatory requirements, private fund products cannot publicly display performance data; the figures here are replaced with ***.]

Former well-known fund manager Zhou Yebo of China Europe Fund also founded his own private firm, Shanghai Yunzhuo, in 2022. The company’s management scale is between 5 and 10 billion yuan, and its product “Yunzhuo Zhiyuan No.1 Phase 1” has a return of *** as of the end of February 2026.