Top China hedge fund suspends founder, cites reputational hit from family matter

HONG KONG : A leading Chinese hedge fund, High-Flyer Quant, said it has suspended its co-founder and senior executive Xu Jin from work due to his “improper handling of a family matter”.

The Hangzhou-based quantitative fund did not specify what Xu had done or what role of his has been suspended but said in a statement published on its official WeChat account late on Thursday it “caused negative public opinion and had a negative impact on company reputation”.

High-Flyer Quant did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. The statement did not specify the duration of Xu’s suspension.

Xu could not be immediately reached for comment and did not respond to a message sent on his LinkedIn account.

High-Flyer Quant owns two asset management units overseeing combined assets of more than 40 billion yuan ($5.47 billion) currently, according to media reports. The company said in the WeChat post the decision on Xu will not affect the operations of the underlying funds.

Xu has a PhD in ‘Signal and Processing’ from Zhejiang University, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is legal representative of High-Flyer Asset Management (Zhejiang) Co Ltd and CEO of High-Flyer Quant Investment Management (Ningbo) LP, according to the Asset Management Association of China’s website.

High-Flyer, established in 2015, said on its website it relies on mathematics and artificial intelligence for quantitative investments.

A flagship multi-strategy quant fund managed by Xu has an annualised return of 20.4 per cent since its launch in 2017, but is down 0.46 per cent so far this year, according to data provider Shenzhen PaiPaiWang Investment & Management Co.

($1 = 7.3150 Chinese yuan renminbi)