An old-money family from the UK has withdrawn.

Last weekend, news spread that Schroders, a British asset management giant, was withdrawing its wholly - owned public fund from the Chinese market. On May 20th, the speculation became a reality.

Wholly - foreign - owned public funds Schroders Fund and Neuberger Berman Fund simultaneously announced that Schroders Fund would transfer the management functions of three public funds to Neuberger Berman Fund. Neuberger Berman Fund intends to take over some core investment personnel of the relevant changed funds. These three public funds are: Schroder Hengxiang Bond - type Securities Investment Fund, Schroder China Dynamic Equity - type Securities Investment Fund, and Schroder Tianyuan Pure Bond - type Securities Investment Fund.

Thus, Schroders' public fund, which entered the Chinese market in 2023, has officially exited the stage of history in just three years.

A person familiar with the matter said that this is part of Schroders' broader global withdrawal from smaller and non - core areas. However, he also pointed out that China remains a strategic focus for the company.

The End of a 222 - Year Financial Dynasty

The changes in Schroders' business in the Chinese market are part of its recent business adjustments and are also a follow - up to the acquisition at the beginning of the year.

At the beginning of February this year, a major transaction came to light. The news showed that Nuveen, a leading US asset management company, would acquire all the issued and to - be - issued shares of the British asset management company Schroders in an all - cash deal through its newly established wholly - owned subsidiary, "Pantheon, LLC", at a price of up to £9.9 billion (approximately $13.5 billion or 931.8 billion yuan).

After the transaction is completed, it means that this long - established London - based asset management institution with a 222 - year history has officially changed hands.

Schroders' story is a history of global financial expansion spanning two centuries. In 1804, it was jointly founded by 17 - year - old Johann Heinrich Schröder and his brother. Initially, Schroders mainly engaged in sugar trading and trade finance.

In 1818, Johann Heinrich set up his own business, establishing J. Henry Schroder & Co. Focusing on trade financing between Europe and the United States, it quickly rose to become one of the top commercial banks in London, arranging bond financing for infrastructure projects across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

In 1870, Schroders issued a bond to support Japan in building its first railway, demonstrating its keen sense of emerging markets. It wasn't until 1924 that Schroders established its first investment trust fund, officially venturing into asset management. In 1926, it officially set up an investment department, laying the groundwork for its future role as a professional asset management institution.

In 1959, Schroders was listed on the London Stock Exchange. The public offering was over - subscribed by 18 times. The Schroders family retained a significant stake, maintaining a long - term stable ownership structure.

The year 2000 was another watershed in Schroders' development history. The company sold its investment banking department and completely focused on asset and wealth management. Schroders internally described this as a heart - breaking moment. Since then, Schroders has continued to expand into alternative investment areas such as the private market, real estate, and infrastructure financing, building a multi - asset investment landscape through a series of strategic acquisitions.

As of October 2025, the group's assets under management were approximately £816.7 billion (more than 76 trillion yuan). It has 38 offices globally and over 6,100 professional talents. The Schroders family still holds about 44% of the issued shares, always retaining control and being the core shareholder of this century - old company.

Throughout Schroders' development history, it has weathered many crises and remained prosperous. During the 1929 US economic crisis, Schroders' US investment business was hardly affected. During the 2008 global financial crisis, Schroders actually received large orders from institutional clients, and its scale increased instead of decreasing.

However, against the backdrop of the rise of passive investment, the decline in industry fees, and the increasingly fierce scale competition, even a century - old company like Schroders can't remain unscathed.

In the past decade, global investors have sold off the managed funds that Schroders Group relies on and turned to lower - cost "passive" index - tracking funds and exchange - traded funds (ETFs). Meanwhile, Schroders' core clients, British pension funds, have been withdrawing from the British stock market over the past two decades, further causing the decline of Schroders' stock price.

In the past three years, due to clients withdrawing billions of pounds from its funds, Schroders' stock price has fallen by about 50%.

On one hand, there is a continuous reduction in the capital scale, and on the other hand, there is a continuous decline in the stock price. No wonder that within just two meetings, about six weeks, the Schroders family signed the sales contract, selling all the group's shares without retaining any.

Behind this acquisition is the cruel survival rule of the asset management industry - scale means survival. Previously, Schroders had launched a £150 million cost - cutting plan and planned to lay off about 3% of its staff to improve its operating performance. In January 2025, Schroders launched a three - year global transformation plan, streamlining and reshaping its business layout and client product offerings in specific markets in Asia, Europe, and South America.

Although the merged company can enter the "trillion - dollar club" and dilute costs and increase investment, it still pales in comparison to US giants. BlackRock has an asset scale close to $14 trillion, and Vanguard Group's asset scale is also about $12 trillion.

Regarding the fall of Schroders' financial empire, a person closely related to the company told the Financial Times that the reasons for selling the investment bank back then and selling the asset management company now are the same. It's because they couldn't break into the US market. They needed to invest in the US but didn't have enough funds, so they had to sell to large US companies.

The First Wholly - Owned Public Fund to Exit the Chinese Market

Now, let's get back to the closure of Schroders' wholly - owned public fund business in China. In fact, this adjustment has no direct relation to the above - mentioned acquisition. The transfer of the three public funds does not mean that Schroders Group has completely exited the Chinese public fund market.

In 2005, Schroders, together with Bank of Communications and CIMC Group, established Bank of Communications Schroder Fund Management Co., Ltd. in Shanghai. It is the first joint - venture fund company established with the participation of a domestic listed commercial bank. Currently, Schroders Group still participates in joint - venture asset management companies in China, including a 30% stake in Bank of Communications Schroder Fund and a 51% controlling stake in Schroder Bank of Communications Wealth Management. These two joint - venture companies continue to operate normally and are not affected by this transaction.

Schroders has long achieved a diversified business layout in China, not just in public funds. In 1994, Schroders established a representative office in Shanghai, becoming one of the first foreign asset management companies to enter the Chinese mainland. Later, Schroders used QFLP to invest in non - public markets such as China's new energy infrastructure and logistics real estate, introducing more than 3 billion yuan of foreign capital into China's private equity market. Its strategies cover fund investment, private equity secondary market transactions, follow - on investments, and direct investments.

A year ago, Schroders and Xizi International jointly launched a private real - estate equity investment fund plan with a total scale of about 3 billion yuan, focusing on investment opportunities in high - quality office buildings and consumer - related infrastructure in core cities in the Yangtze River Delta. In February this year, during UK Prime Minister Starmer's visit to China, Schroders also signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with CATL and Lochpine Capital to jointly explore, develop, and invest in European battery energy storage projects, with a potential development scale of up to 10GWh.

From the perspective of global business adjustment, since its establishment in 2023, the management scale of Schroders Fund (China) has shrunk significantly. As of the end of the first quarter of 2026, its management scale was only 1.695 billion yuan, a decline of more than 70% compared to the peak of 6.4 billion yuan at the end of the first quarter of 2025.

This is almost negligible in Schroders' nearly 1 - trillion - pound global asset management landscape. It is a natural choice to divest this business and invest resources in more advantageous joint - venture channels.

From a macro - environment perspective, since 2023, China's domestic public fund industry has experienced a historic "fee - reduction wave", with management fees and custody fees rising significantly. In addition, the Chinese public fund market highly depends on the channel distribution of domestic banks, securities firms, and Internet third - party platforms. Schroders, which is deeply bound to and well - recognized by domestic institutional clients, finds it difficult to push its management scale to the break - even point in a short period.

Due to the "acclimatization", Schroders has become the first institution to choose to sell its license since China lifted restrictions on wholly - foreign - owned public funds.

If we look back further, in addition to Schroders, Vanguard and VanEck have also made the same choice.

At the end of 2023, as one of the world's largest index fund and mutual fund giants, after evaluating the Chinese market, Vanguard believed that its retail public fund model, which "highly depends on individual direct sales" in the US, could not be replicated in the Chinese market, which highly depends on distribution commissions. Therefore, in 2021, it postponed its application for a public fund license and officially closed its Shanghai office and exited the Chinese market at the end of 2023, also selling all its shares in the investment advisory company jointly established with Ant Group.

Also in 2023, VanEck, a well - known US ETF and public - private fund company, terminated its application for a public fund license in China, laid off its public fund fundraising team, and instead focused its energy and remaining team on lighter - scale private (QFII/QDLP) business targeting specific institutions.

In this regard, some analysts said that as the trend of passivation and concentration in the global asset management industry intensifies, cases like Schroders' "sacrificing a piece to gain an advantage" may become more frequent. For China, the ebb of wholly - foreign - owned public funds does not mean a setback in opening up. On the contrary, it tests the maturity of the market in the process of survival of the fittest.

This article is from the WeChat official account "China Venture Capital". Author: Zhang Xue. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.