Active management and passive management are relative concepts. Trust companies have so-called active and passive management of trust projects.

Passivity refers to the simple, passive and channel business of trust companies, such as bank-trust cooperation. Because its business is simple and dominated by banks, it often partially gives up or ignores the control of the project.

Active management refers to the trust company actively planning the management of the project and taking a positive attitude to control the project.

First, the origin of independent management and policy:

20 10 put forward the concept of "self-management", which is a warning denial of the cooperation between banks and trust companies in the past as "bank trust" and "platform". From the long-term development of trust companies, it is also a forward-looking guide.

Second, why should supervision introduce the concept of active management?

Active management ability means that "trust companies, as trustees, play a leading role in the process of trust management, play a decisive role in due diligence, product design, project decision-making and post-management and assume major management responsibilities".

3. In the Notice on Matters Related to Strengthening Trust Companies' Active Management Capability issued by CBRC on 20 10, it is clearly stated that "trust companies are encouraged to actively manage trust business, cultivate their core asset management capabilities and build exclusive product brands, and trust companies will shift their business focus to active management business; 2065438+In April 2004, the CBRC issued the Guiding Opinions on Risk Supervision of Trust Companies (hereinafter referred to as Document No.99), and put forward various supervision policies. In this context, major trust companies began to issue active management trust plans.

No.99 "Guiding Opinions on Risk Supervision of Trust Companies" issued by CBRC (No.201499)

(1). Due diligence of trust company shareholders: The most striking paragraph in China's document is "on establishing shareholder liquidity support and capital replenishment mechanism", that is, "trust company shareholders should promise or stipulate in the trust company's articles of association to provide necessary liquidity support when the trust company has liquidity risks. If the operating loss of a trust company erodes its capital, it shall be fully deducted from its net capital, and the business scale shall be reduced accordingly, or shareholders shall replenish their capital in time. If a trust company violates the prudent operating rules, seriously endangering the company's stable operation and harming the legitimate rights and interests of investors, the regulatory authorities shall distinguish the situation and take regulatory measures such as ordering the controlling shareholder to transfer the equity or restricting the rights of relevant shareholders according to law. "

(2) Due diligence of trust companies: Trust companies must conduct all-round, whole-process and dynamic management from the aspects of product design, due diligence, risk control and supervision, product marketing, follow-up management, information disclosure and risk disposal. Especially for the post-investment management of the project, it is necessary to track and monitor the risks irregularly, and conduct stress tests on key risk areas such as real estate regularly. The way to deal with risks must be market-oriented.

(3) Due diligence of the project manager: Document No.99 stipulates that all trust projects should be followed by special personnel, and the responsibilities should be clear to all. After the project risks are exposed, the trust company should fully cope with the risks and suspend the relevant project leaders from developing new business before completing the risk resolution;

(4) The supervision department should do its duty: shift the focus of product risk control to ex ante risk control, and stipulate that "the business scope of trust companies should be subject to strict access approval management; Implement a reporting system for specific products within the business scope. All products entering the market must be reported to the regulatory authorities one by one according to the procedures and unified requirements 10 days before entering the market. " At the same time, local banking regulatory bureaus are also required to strictly supervise the sales of trust products.

(5) Definition of trust fund pool: It is stipulated in the article that "trust companies shall not carry out businesses with shadow banking characteristics such as non-standardized financial fund pool". At the same time, it is required to provide specific information and explanations on the non-standard wealth management fund pool business that has been carried out, put forward a rectification plan, and submit it to the regulatory authorities before June 30, 20 14. This time, the regulatory authorities asked for the clarification of the fund pool, with the purpose of allowing trust companies to gradually and steadily promote the clearing and clarification of the fund pool business in light of their actual conditions, so as not to cause their liquidity risk due to "one size fits all".

Circular 99 severely cracked down on the "non-standard fund pool", making the whole non-standard boundary bad, especially the actively managed trust that invests in non-standard assets, because it seems to be a non-standard fund pool, and it is difficult to argue how to explain it.

In fact, active trust management is a good boy, and it is also the business direction that regulators have been strongly supporting: the CBRC clearly stated in the Notice on Strengthening the Construction of Trust Companies' Active Management Capacity (Discussion Draft) (hereinafter referred to as the Notice) that "trust companies are encouraged to actively manage trust business, cultivate core asset management capabilities, and build exclusive product brands."

As for what is active management trust, the official definition is this:

"Active management trust refers to the operating trust business in which the trust company, as the trustee, plays a leading role in the trust management process, plays a decisive role in due diligence, product design, project decision-making and post-management and assumes the main management responsibilities. Trust companies outsource some of the above management work to other institutions, but trust projects that do not affect the trustee's main position can also be regarded as actively managed trusts. "

From the official definition of active management trust, the entrusted management behavior of trust companies runs through every link of this kind of business from beginning to end. As for the so-called active management responsibility, it is not only a full display of the trust company's investment and asset management capabilities, but also a further strengthening of the trust company's fiduciary responsibility.

This strengthening of fiduciary responsibility is not only reflected in counterparty selection, due diligence, credit enhancement measures, post-investment tracking management and other aspects. In order to express enough sincerity and confidence, actively managed trusts are often designed to completely cover the priority and inferior structure of risks-the long-term funds of institutional investors who prefer high risks and high returns are used as inferior shares, and the principal and income security of priority shares are fully guaranteed.

? Seven advantages of actively managing trust

I actively managed the trust project and returned to the original business of the trust company.

"Trust", as its name implies, also means "entrusted by people to manage money on behalf of customers". The trust business introduced to China from western countries is itself an asset management service. The active management trust project represents the real asset management ability of the trust company.

At present, trust company projects in China are mainly divided into two categories: investment (active investment management trust) and financing (passive trust management based on credit). At present, most of our common products are financing products. After tightening the scale of cooperative assets between banks and trust companies, the CBRC began to emphasize that trust companies should not only be used as financing channels, but also encourage trust companies to transform their business, actively advocate trust companies to increase the development of actively managed trust products, and cultivate core asset management level and independent financial management ability.

Therefore, it is the general trend for trust products to change from financing type to active management type. Active management trust projects are products that major trust companies demonstrate their asset management capabilities. The quality of the project directly tests the brand, reputation and market competitiveness of the trust company, which is the real significance of the existence of the trust company.

Second, active management is highly valued.

"People's Republic of China (PRC) Trust Law" clearly stipulates that trust companies shall bear full responsibility for trust losses caused by their active mismanagement. Therefore, in any kind of trust project, active management of the project is highly valued.

On April 8, 20 14, the Guiding Opinions on Risk Supervision of Trust Companies issued by the China Banking Regulatory Commission clearly required that "trust companies should establish liquidity support and capital replenishment mechanisms. The shareholders of a trust company shall promise or stipulate in the articles of association of the trust company to provide necessary liquidity support when the trust company has liquidity risk. If the operating loss of a trust company erodes capital, it shall be fully deducted from the net capital, and the business scale shall be reduced accordingly, or shareholders shall replenish capital in time. "

Third, the trust company is the main body of financing.

Trust companies are the main financing entities for actively managing projects, and most of the shareholders are central enterprises, state-owned enterprises, local governments or large financial institutions. Therefore, trust companies are more powerful than any entity enterprises as financing entities.

Fourth, the investment strategy is more flexible and the use of funds is more efficient.

In order to improve the efficiency of the use of funds, trust companies set up investment decision-making committees and specific investment restrictions through independent management on the basis of ensuring the safety and liquidity of trust assets. Idle funds under actively managed trusts are not only used to invest in high-quality trust plans, but also used to transfer short-term and stable income investments such as bank credit assets, money market investments and bank deposits. At the same time, according to different investment methods, corresponding risk control measures are taken to effectively disperse investment risks, and the profit model with poor long-term and short-term returns is adopted, so that the efficiency of fund use is higher, so as to obtain long-term stable value-added and effectively guarantee the timely payment of trust plans.

Fifth, the financing cost is relatively low.

Trust projects are mainly divided into the following categories from the investment direction, namely, industrial and commercial enterprise loan trust, real estate trust, active management trust, political trust and equity pledge trust. Among them, the real estate (000736, stock bar) trust has the highest financing cost, usually around 16%. Secondly, the loan trust is about 15%, while the financing cost of active management trust and political trust is relatively low. Low financing cost means low project risk. Political trust relies on the strong government credit of local governments, while active management of trust relies on the strong background and policy guidance of trust companies, so we can hardly see any problems with such trust projects in the market.

Six, improve the efficiency of the use of funds, save time to raise funds.

Active management trust (investment) refers to the trust company using its own asset management ability to actively find projects for investment, so the trust managers of active management trust projects are mostly the chief financial officer or vice president of the trust company, and usually invite authoritative people in the investment community as investment consultants.

Generally speaking, as a financing channel, trust projects issued by trust companies take 2-3 months from business negotiation to due diligence, from writing documents to submitting them to the CBRC for approval, and then to the final meeting of the CBRC. Generally, it takes 2-3 months for a product to be issued to the end of fundraising. In these 2-3 months, both the financier and the trust company have spent a lot of manpower and material resources. The advantage of actively managing the project is that the trust company saves the above time cost and capital cost after setting up this asset pool project. As long as there are good projects, project managers and investment authorities will give professional advice. Trust companies can directly use the funds from the fund pool to dock high-quality projects without missing good projects. For the trust company, it saves the issuing cost, saves the raising time and greatly improves the utilization efficiency of funds, which is beneficial to the whole.

Seven, the deadline is more flexible

The term of actively managed trust projects can range from 1 month to 24 months, with flexible term and high liquidity, which is convenient for investors to choose flexibly.

There is a problem:

Isn't active management trust the same as fund pool trust?

There is an answer:

"Cash pool business" refers to the trust product business that uses funds in the form of portfolio investment. Its characteristic is that funds are not fixed, generally invested in many fields, and managed independently by trust companies.

Active management trust mainly refers to the main management responsibilities of trust companies in trust asset management, such as product recommendation, project screening, investment decision-making and implementation. According to this definition, in the trust business that the company has carried out, the application of collective trust plan includes loan trust, equity investment trust, beneficiary trust, securities investment trust and merger trust. , can be classified as active management trust, and through a single trust plan, bank credit assets transfer, enterprise entrusted loans, private equity funds sunshine, enterprise equity holding can be classified as passive management trust.

In order to encourage trust companies to transform into wealth management, actively managed trusts have been advocated by regulators and given policy support. Therefore, many trust companies classify the issued fund pool products as active management products.

As for how to distinguish between cash pool products, actively managed trust products have investment subjects, at least with a larger scope and alternative projects. Compared with cash pool products, the information is symmetrical. However, there is no specific investment in pure cash pool products, which may be borrowed from the new and returned to the old. Information is opaque and risky. Investors should pay attention to investment when reading promotional materials, and try to avoid pure cash pool products.