What Is a Professional Trustee?

Trust trustees are also called "property trustees", "trust managers" and "trustees". Refers to the parties in a trust relationship that manage the trust property granted and assume fiduciary duties in accordance with the intent of the trust. The trustee can be a natural person with legal capacity or a legal person with trusteeship; it can be one person or several people, but there are no restrictions on the number of trustees in some countries. The trustees are divided into ordinary trustees, judicial trustees and public trustees; of which the trustees based on the appointment of the property grantor are ordinary trustees, the trustees based on the court designation are judicial trustees, and the trustees are appointed by the government Public servants in personal status are public trustees. The trustee's trust obligations mainly include: trustworthiness obligation, good governance obligation, loyalty obligation, trust benefit payment obligation, trust business disclosure obligation, property return obligation, etc. ^[1]

Trustee

Trust trustees are also called "property trustees", "trust managers" and "trustees". Refers to the parties in a trust relationship that manage the trust property granted and assume fiduciary duties in accordance with the intent of the trust. The trustee can be a natural person with legal capacity or a legal person with trusteeship; it can be one person or several people, but there are no restrictions on the number of trustees in some countries. The trustees are divided into ordinary trustees, judicial trustees and public trustees; of which the trustees based on the appointment of the property grantor are ordinary trustees, the trustees based on the court designation are judicial trustees, and the trustees are appointed by the government Public servants in personal status are public trustees. The trustee's trust obligations mainly include: trustworthiness obligation, good governance obligation, loyalty obligation, trust benefit payment obligation, trust business disclosure obligation, property return obligation, etc. ^[1]

The trustee can be a natural person with behavioral capacity or a legal person with trusty management capacity, which can be 1

Trustworthiness

The trustee must exercise the property rights in accordance with the intent of the trust and the terms of the trust, otherwise it will constitute an abuse of rights and bear violations.

The trustee shall abide by the provisions of the trust documents, perform its duties diligently, perform its obligations of honesty, credit, prudence, and effective management, and handle trust affairs in the best interests of the beneficiary; the trustee shall treat the trust property with its inherent property and other trust properties managed by the trustee Separate management and separate accounting, the trustee shall not convert the trust property into its inherent property, and may not use the trust property to obtain the rights and interests agreed in this contract for itself.

The fiduciary duty of the trustee is the result of legalizing the moral duty

The USES system refers to the transfer of land to a trustee when the landowner is alive. The trustee becomes the owner of the land. After the death of the client, the trustee can continue to hold the land for the benefit of the beneficiary or transfer the land at an appropriate time. Ownership is transferred to the person designated by the client, which effectively circumvents feudal law's restrictions on land inheritance and gift. Morally, the trustee has the obligation to act in accordance with the instructions of the client, and he shall not enjoy the actual interests of the land.

Breach of fiduciary duties by trustees is not an isolated phenomenon in China

In contrast to China's situation, first of all, China is a civil law country. There is no tradition in the history of legalizing customary practices that conform to moral obligations. Only the provisions of written law can legalize moral obligations. Second, religion in China has never It has not played a decisive role as in the West, and the historical evolution after modernization has made most Chinese people a secular group without religion.

Therefore, one cannot expect trustees in China to be like

Trust: wealth management products open up new profit models

After the implementation of the new regulations, the investment threshold for trustworthy financial products of trust companies has increased significantly. The development of trust companies in trust companies is in trouble and they are struggling to find new profit models. At this time, the wealth management product launched by the trust and bank may be an innovation highlight.

Since the second half of 1990, banks and trusts have launched countless wealth management products to launch new shares, and their scale has rapidly increased. At present, the cooperation of banks, trusts and fund companies has once again benefited trust companies in the stock market.

According to the manager of a trust company in the south, "Bank wealth management products cannot directly invest in the stock market, so the role of trustees of trust companies can be exerted to the fullest extent. In this type of wealth management products, the functions of trusts, banks, funds or securities firms are linked. No one can do without it. "

In China Merchants Bank's "Tian Fu Zeng Yi" financial management plan, trusts, banks, and fund companies each perform their respective roles, acting as trustees, custodians, and investment consultants, giving full play to their inherent functions.

It is reported that the trustee service fee paid by investors investing in this product at an annual rate of 5 will undoubtedly add a big cake to the trust and open up a new profit model for the trust company.

Brokers: use the trust to carry out reasonable wealth collection

According to regulations, only innovative securities dealers can carry out the business of collecting reasonable wealth, and most of them are temporarily excluded from this business. The reporter recently learned that as the stock market improves, a number of non-innovative securities companies have participated in the market of reasonable wealth through trusts, and strive to get a share of the reasonable wealth market.

A trust company manager told reporters that in response to the needs of non-innovative securities companies to collect reasonable wealth, there have been many trust companies working with securities companies and banks to launch fund trust plans. The securities companies have used the trust to achieve the goal of collecting reasonable wealth.

According to industry insiders, a large trust company in Shanghai started this kind of business earlier and is relatively mature. It has launched a series of trust products for investment securities in the secondary market with participation of securities companies, with a total raised fund of nearly 1 billion yuan.

It is understood that the specific arrangements are: a collective trust scheme issued by a trust company for the secondary market for investment securities. The securities firm uses its own funds as investors to participate in the trust scheme. At the same time, the securities firm also acts as an investment consultant to guide the trust product to raise funds Invest and get a profit distribution. Of course, brokerage companies need to pay certain management fees through the trust.

Fund: Adding new sources of income

For fund companies, investment management is their strength. In new wealth management products in cooperation with trusts and banks, fund companies act as financial advisers and charge investment advisory fees. In this regard, industry insiders said that this is equivalent to making full use of existing resources while adding a new source of income. As long as it operates in compliance, the prospects will be very broad.

At present, domestic fund companies are eager to expand new profit models. Due to the strict control of the newly issued funds, some fund companies have difficulty in launching new products throughout the year. Therefore, the funds are also very willing to participate in bank wealth management products.

In addition, compared with general fund offering products, this type of banking wealth management product has partly incorporated an incentive mechanism in the design to allow investment managers to fully share investment income. According to a person from Everbright Bank, the upcoming wealth management products of banks, trusts, and funds will adopt performance sharing on the incentive mechanism. According to the performance of Morningstar rating, the excess income exceeding the same type of funds after maturity will be divided by 25%. No The average rate of return of the same type of fund that exceeds Morningstar's rating is no commission.

The chief inspector of a fund company said that although the business has a bright future, the main thing is to avoid conflicts of interest and avoid related party transactions. If a fund company recommends to a consulting company the stocks it buys, it involves a conflict of interest. Therefore, for fund companies, a firewall must be established.

In March 1990, the supervisory authorities issued the "Notice on Issues Concerning Fund Management Companies' Provision of Investment Advisory Services to Specific Objects." According to the notice, fund companies can directly set up operations with qualified foreign institutional investors, domestic insurance companies, and others Institutions provide investment consulting services to specific objects. However, the notice also puts forward very strict requirements for fund companies to provide investment consulting services, including requiring fund companies to deploy specialized professionals, establishing sound internal control systems such as business isolation, and separating investment consulting services from fund investment management and other operations to prevent Benefit delivery behavior, etc.