Lei Tao of Debon Fund leaves, its stable-profit products lost 2.1 billion yuan in Q1, once caught in "illegal marketing" controversy

The departure of a fund manager in charge of tens of billions has caught the market's attention!

Recently, Debon Fund issued eight announcements regarding changes in fund managers in a row. Lei Tao, a fund manager, resigned from all the products he managed at once. He left his position on May 29 and will not take up other positions. The relevant products will be taken over by three fund managers, Lu Yang, Yuan Zhini, and Jiang Yanglei.

Lei Tao is a star fund manager at Debon Fund. Before his resignation, he managed four equity products under Debon Fund (with multiple share classes combined), with a management scale of 18.13 billion yuan.

Lei Tao's investment style is quite extreme. As a "tech-savvy" person, the products he managed once bet heavily on the AI computing power track. In 2025, they achieved an annual return of over 120%. Before his departure, his highest return during his tenure exceeded 500%. His good management performance quickly made him popular and turned him into a "net celebrity fund manager" in the market.

However, he and the products he managed were once involved in a storm of illegal marketing. In January 2026, market media reported that a fund company carried out marketing cooperation with an internet "big V" who did not have the qualification for fund sales business and fund practice. The fund product attracted 10 billion yuan in a single day.

This fund company was pointed to Debon Fund, and the fund product was precisely the Debon Steady Growth Flexible Allocation Hybrid (hereinafter referred to as "Debon Steady Growth").

Subsequently, the regulatory authorities stepped in for an urgent investigation, ordered the company to make corrections, and suspended the acceptance of the registration of public fund products. They also held relevant responsible persons such as the general manager and the chief inspector accountable.

After being involved in the illegal marketing storm, there were changes in the management of Debon Fund. Zuo Chang, the former chairman, officially left his position due to "work adjustment", and Wu Xiaochun took over the duties of the chairman on an acting basis.

Now, Lei Tao, the fund manager at the center of that illegal marketing storm, has also resigned. At the same time of his resignation, he also wrote a farewell letter. In the letter, Lei Tao said, "Due to personal reasons, I have decided to take a temporary leave and take time to rest and precipitate, but I will always pay attention to the development of Debon Fund."

With Lei Tao's departure, it seems to have drawn a thought-provoking full stop to the previous illegal marketing storm at Debon Fund.

"Liquidating" all products, a fund manager in charge of tens of billions leaves

Looking through Lei Tao's personal resume, it has an obvious "industrial gene". He graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with a master's degree in Control Theory and Control Engineering. After graduation, he worked as a technician at Huawei. Then he switched from Huawei to the financial industry and once worked as a researcher at Hua'an Securities and a senior research director at Debon Securities.

In June 2021, Lei Tao transferred from Debon Securities to work at Debon Fund. At the beginning at Debon Fund, he worked as a researcher in the stock research department. Six months later, in December, Lei Tao began to serve as a fund manager and jointly issued his first product with fund manager Wu Hao - the Debon Semiconductor Industry Hybrid. Starting from a product with a scale of about 10 million yuan, he began his career as a fund manager.

What first caught the attention of a large number of investors was a Q&A interaction in an investor community. In June 2023, the performance of the fund products managed by Lei Tao fluctuated and declined. An investor asked in the interaction community, "As a fund manager, what are you doing when the fund keeps falling?"

Lei Tao replied self - deprecatingly, "When my products keep falling, I'm trying to do some housework so that my wife may scold me less, after all, she bought quite a few of my products." Such a self - deprecating and humorous answer unexpectedly made Lei Tao well - known to investors in 2023.

What further attracted the pursuit of market investors was Lei Tao's management performance in recent years. Lei Tao's investment style is an extreme style of concentrated positions in the technology track, which can be characterized by high positions, high concentration, and high elasticity. The stock assets in the funds managed by Lei Tao account for over 90%, and the top ten holdings account for about 60%. The concentrated track is an all - in bet on the AI computing power track.

Take the Debon Xinxing Value Flexible Allocation Hybrid managed by Lei Tao as an example. Lei Tao began to participate in the management of this fund in January 2024. After his participation, the allocation of stock assets in this fund has been over 90% for a long time, and almost all the heavy - position targets of the fund are individual stocks in the AI computing power industry. Taking the first quarter of 2026 as an example, the top ten heavy - position stocks of this fund in the first quarter included Xinyisheng, Zhongji Xuchuang, Shenghong Technology, Tianfu Communication, Dongshan Precision, etc.

Since 2025, the explosion of the AI industry has driven the growth of computing power demand, and the AI computing power track has become one of the popular tracks in the capital market. The products managed by Lei Tao, who bet heavily on the AI computing power track, have also made a lot of money. The annual return of the Debon Xinxing Value Flexible Allocation Hybrid in 2025 exceeded 120%, ranking 8th among more than 2,000 similar products. And as of Lei Tao's resignation as a fund manager, during the more than two years he managed the Debon Xinxing Value Flexible Allocation Hybrid, the cumulative return during his tenure reached 531%.

The almost doubled management performance led to a sharp increase in the scale of the fund, attracting a lot of funds from the market. The scale of the Debon Xinxing Value Flexible Allocation Hybrid soared from less than 100 million yuan when Lei Tao took over to more than 8 billion yuan when he left.

Lei Tao's popular performance management became the target pursued by market investors. This is also one of the reasons why Debon Fund was able to attract a large number of investors to invest and absorb more than 10 billion yuan in a single day in that illegal marketing incident.

Wind data shows that during Lei Tao's tenure as a fund manager at Debon Fund, he managed a total of five products (with multiple share classes combined). In April 2026, he resigned as the fund manager of one product because it was liquidated and ceased operation. He managed the remaining four products until his departure.

Before Lei Tao's departure, the total scale of the four products he managed reached 18.13 billion yuan. The returns of three products during his tenure were positive, while only one product had a negative return during the management period, with a cumulative loss of over 19%, and the C share class had a loss of over 30%.

This only loss - making product was the Debon Steady Growth, which was involved in the illegal marketing storm.

Involved in an illegal marketing storm, the "net celebrity product" lost 2.1 billion in the first quarter. Is "steady growth" really steady?

Data shows that the Debon Steady Growth was established in March 2017. This fund has been managed by several fund managers. Lei Tao began to take over the management of this product on March 29, 2023. Less than two months after Lei Tao took over, the C share class of the Debon Steady Growth was added. This C share class also became the inflow position for funds in the illegal marketing.

Before the first quarter of 2026, the scale of the Debon Steady Growth was not prominent. The annual report of the fund in 2025 showed that as of the end of 2025, the total scale of the A and C share classes of this fund was 1.027 billion shares, and the total fund assets were 1.011 billion yuan.

The significant increase in the scale of this fund occurred in the first quarter of 2026. In January 2026, suddenly, some media reported that the Debon Steady Growth under Debon Fund sold more than 10 billion yuan in a single day on the Ant Fund platform, and it was rumored that the scale reached 12 billion yuan.

In response to the statement that "the Debon Steady Growth sold 12 billion yuan in a single day", Debon Fund replied at that time that the company had not publicly disclosed the intraday scale data of its funds. The daily scale data of public fund products is non - public information. The scale information of public fund products shall be subject to the content released in the regular fund reports and official designated channels.

However, on January 13, Debon Fund successively issued two purchase restriction announcements, stating that in order to protect the interests of fund share holders, it was decided to adjust the large - amount purchase (including conversion transfer - in and regular fixed - amount investment) business limit of the Debon Steady Growth on a single sales institution from January 13, 2026. The large - amount purchase limit for the A share class of the Debon Steady Growth was adjusted to 1 million yuan, and the large - amount purchase limit for the C share class was adjusted to 100,000 yuan (on a single sales institution). This also indirectly confirmed that there had indeed been large - amount capital inflows into this fund recently.

The situation of the Debon Steady Growth and the resulting public opinion soon caught the attention of the market and regulators. Soon, at the end of January 2026, the Securities and Fund Institution Supervision Department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued the first "Institutional Supervision Situation Bulletin" in 2026. The content mentioned that recently, the single - day subscription volume of a fund product managed by a fund company exceeded 10 billion yuan, which was suspected of illegal sales and attracted the attention and reports of many media. The regulatory authorities immediately organized on - site verification.

The bulletin further pointed out that after verification, Fund Company D carried out marketing cooperation with an internet "big V" who did not have the qualification for fund sales business and fund practice, paid a large amount of advertising fees to the "big V", and used the traffic and influence of the internet "big V" to encourage investors to follow and buy Product A, inducing investors whose risk tolerance did not match to buy medium - and high - risk products.

According to relevant laws and regulations, the regulatory authorities took regulatory measures against Fund Company D, including ordering it to make corrections and suspending the acceptance of the registration of public fund products. At the same time, they held responsible persons such as the company's general manager, chief inspector, and the person in charge of the internet business department accountable.

Although the regulatory authorities' bulletin did not name names, the outside world believes that Fund Company D and Product A refer to Debon Fund and the Debon Steady Growth respectively.

Observation shows that since January 2026, Debon Fund has not issued any new products. According to the first - quarter financial report of the Debon Steady Growth in 2026, as of the end of the first quarter of 2026, the total number of fund shares reached 5.252 billion, and the asset scale was 5.042 billion yuan.

Among them, the number of C share class of the fund reached 4.978 billion at the end of the first quarter, and the asset scale was 4.775 billion yuan. In the first quarter of 2026, the subscription of the Debon Steady Growth exceeded 21.