A hedge fund founded by former Citadel Securities executive Han Jiarui has rapidly expanded its asset base, highlighting renewed investor appetite for quantitative strategies in China’s recovering hedge fund market, according to report by Bloomberg.
The report cites investor materials seen by Bloomberg as revealing that Shenzhen-based ZenX Quant has reportedly increased assets under management to around RMB14bn ($2bn) as of April, up from roughly RMB4bn late last year,.
The firm, established by Han in 2021 after his departure from Citadel Securities, has accelerated fundraising efforts following a period of strong investment performance. ZenX has been marketing a range of quantitative products, including index-enhanced strategies linked to Chinese equity benchmarks such as the CSI A500 Index.
Performance figures presented to investors show the firm’s flagship strategies consistently outperforming their underlying indices over the past year. Its CSI A500-linked product reportedly generated cumulative excess returns of more than 25 percentage points since the end of 2024 through late February, while another small-cap strategy significantly outpaced the CSI 2000 benchmark over a longer time horizon.
ZenX’s growth has coincided with a broader recovery across China’s hedge fund industry following several years of regulatory tightening and subdued market conditions. A rebound in domestic equities since 2025 has helped revive investor sentiment and improve fundraising conditions for quantitative managers.
According to industry data, the number of Chinese hedge fund firms managing more than RMB10bn has continued to rise this year, reflecting renewed institutional interest in the sector. International firms remain relatively limited participants in the market, with only a small number of global managers represented among China’s largest hedge funds.
ZenX has also expanded operationally. The firm entered into a distribution partnership with Citic Securities last year and sharply increased new product launches during the first quarter of 2026.
Despite the rapid growth, the manager has reportedly told prospective investors that maintaining investment performance remains a higher priority than expanding assets under management, and that the firm has declined some inflows in an effort to preserve strategy capacity.
Before founding ZenX, Han built a career across several global quantitative investment firms. A former mathematics Olympiad gold medallist, he studied at Peking University before earning a doctorate in statistics from Stanford University. His previous roles included positions at Barclays Global Investors, Two Sigma and PCA Investments before joining Citadel Securities in 2012.
