China Southern fires BNY Mellon; hires Wellington

China Southern Fund Management says it has terminated its QDII advisory deal with BNY Mellon, effective July 6. Wellington will replace BNY Mellon as China Southern's strategic advisor, providing the company with investment research and portfolio advisory services. Southern did not comment on the reason for the termination.

The Shenzhen fund house was the first company in the industry to be approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to launch a QDII fund in September 2007. At the time, Southern raised close to $8 billion for the product. As of the end of March this year, the fund had total assets of Rmb12.92 billion ($1.89 billion).

The fund manager has also made changes to its portfolio management team, saying portfolio manager Michael Wan will no longer run the QDII fund. Wan was a QFII investment manager that Southern poached from Hang Seng Investments in 2006.