Key Points
- Li Bei (李蓓), founder of Banxia Investment (半夏投资), launched an offline investment course for ¥12,888 RMB ($1,805 USD), sparking controversy due to her fund’s recent underperformance.
- The course includes four sessions, Q&A with Li Bei, and WeChat (微信) access, with all proceeds pledged to a charitable foundation for university students, reframing the narrative from profit to philanthropy.
- Despite managing over ¥10 billion RMB ($1.4 billion USD) historically and achieving a 258% return in 2020 with “Banxia Stable” (半夏稳健), her recent predictions have missed, leading to a -1.47% three-year return for one active product.
- Li Bei’s move highlights a growing trend in China where financial experts like Hong Hao (洪灏) are monetizing their knowledge, with his “Knowledge Planet” account generating over ¥8.5 million RMB ($1.2 million USD) within two weeks from 9,500+ members.
- The rise of “knowledge commerce” reflects shrinking traditional finance compensation and a shift towards direct-to-consumer expertise, although the sustainability of paid financial content faces challenges from abundant free alternatives.
- Duration: Two days in January
- Total Sessions: Four thematic sessions
- Interactive Element: One hour of live Q&A with Li Bei per session
- Exclusive Access: Dedicated WeChat group access (no stock picks)
- Capacity Limit: Capped at 200 participants
The paid knowledge economy just got a major player.
Li Bei (Li Bei 李蓓), founder of Banxia Investment (Banxia Touzi 半夏投资) and one of China’s most controversial fund managers, announced an offline investment course on December 26.
The price tag: ¥12,888 RMB ($1,805 USD) for four sessions.
The promise: Learn to invest like a pro and hit 10%+ annualized returns.
The catch: Her fund’s recent track record tells a very different story.
The Course Details: Four Sessions, Two Days, Real Price Tag
Li Bei’s “Closed-Door Sharing Session” is structured for serious investors—or at least those willing to drop serious cash.
Here’s what you’re actually getting:
- Two days in January with four total sessions
- Two hours of thematic instruction per session
- One hour of live Q&A with Li Bei
- WeChat (Weixin 微信) access to the fund manager (though no stock picks)
- Capped at 200 participants
You can also buy individual sessions for ¥3,888 RMB ($545 USD) each if you want to test the waters first.
The curriculum touches on real investor pain points: identifying scammers, which financial tools to avoid, and whether gold and real estate are actually solid long-term plays.
Interestingly, Li Bei is offering the course completely free to existing investors who’ve held her funds for over two years or invested more than ¥5 million RMB ($700,000 USD).
At full capacity, the course would generate roughly ¥2.58 million RMB ($361,000 USD) in revenue—not insignificant, but here’s where it gets interesting.
Find Top Talent on China's Leading Networks
- Post Across China's Job Sites from $299 / role
- Qualified Applicant Bundles
- One Central Candidate Hub
Your First Job Post Use Checkout Code 'Fresh20'
The Backlash: “Selling Courses Pays Better Than Investing”
The internet had questions.
Chinese investors immediately spotted the irony: If Li Bei is so good at investing, why is she pivoting to sell courses?
The criticism went deeper. Netizens pointed out that knowledge-selling gigs are proving more lucrative than actual fund management in China’s slowing market.
Others wondered if spending time building a course pipeline would inevitably cannibalize time spent on market research—the core job of a fund manager.
It’s a fair question, especially given what happened next.
ExpatInvest China
Grow Your RMB in China:
- Invest Your RMB Locally
- Buy & Sell Online in CN¥
- No Lock-In Periods
- English Service & Data
- Start with Only ¥1,000
Li Bei’s Defense: “I Don’t Need Tens of Millions”
Li Bei didn’t stay quiet.
She published a formal statement titled “Clarification Regarding the Closed-Door Investment Course,” and it reads like a preemptive strike against the narrative that she’s pivoting careers.
Her core argument:
“In the field of paid knowledge, the highest earners probably make about ten million a year. Everyone knows I don’t lack tens of millions.”
Translation: This isn’t about money.
But she went further. Li Bei made explicit commitments to not pursue the paid knowledge route long-term:
- No future systematic offline courses
- No “Knowledge Planet” (Zhishi Xingqiu 知识星球) or similar paid memberships
- No paid WeChat groups
And here’s the kicker: All course income will go to a charitable foundation established by Banxia Investment to support university students.
It’s a smart move—it reframes the narrative from “fund manager needs side hustle” to “established investor giving back.”
Resume Captain
Your AI Career Toolkit:
- AI Resume Optimization
- Custom Cover Letters
- LinkedIn Profile Boost
- Interview Question Prep
- Salary Negotiation Agent
The Real Problem: Recent Fund Performance Has Been Rough
Understanding the backlash requires context about Li Bei’s actual track record.
The woman has serious credentials.
Banxia Investment manages assets exceeding ¥10 billion RMB ($1.4 billion USD), making Li Bei the first female head of a multi-billion-yuan private equity firm in China.
In 2020, one of her flagship products, “Banxia Stable” (Banxia Wenjian 半夏稳健), posted a 258% return—crushing the competition and landing at #1 among peers.
She earned the nickname “Private Equity Witch” for a reason: she could read the market like few others.
But then the script flipped.
When Predictions Missed Hard
Fast forward to late 2022.
Li Bei made a very public call: A-shares were at the “starting point of a new long-term bull market.”
The market had other plans.
Trends diverged significantly from her prediction.
By 2023, she was bullish on real estate stocks, calling them “once-in-a-decade opportunity.”
The real estate sector continued to crater.
In mid-December, a frustrated investor went public with their experience: “I’ve held it for over three years and lost 15 points; it’s the worst product in my portfolio.”
The post went viral in private equity circles.
The Numbers Tell the Story
Looking at Banxia’s current portfolio data paints a sobering picture:
- Multiple products have stopped updating their Net Asset Value (NAV)
- One active product, “Banxia Macro Hedge Phase III,” shows 166.32% total return since inception—but a -1.47% three-year return
- This significantly underperforms the CSI 300 (Houshen 300 沪深300) index
- Management scale has contracted to between ¥5 billion RMB ($700 million USD) and ¥10 billion RMB ($1.4 billion USD)
- The firm hasn’t returned to the “ten-billion-yuan” club
Translation: It’s been a rough few years.
Against this backdrop, launching a ¥12,888 RMB ($1,805 USD) course—even if proceeds go to charity—starts to feel like damage control.
The Bigger Trend: Financial Elites Go “Knowledge Commerce”
But Li Bei isn’t alone.
A wave of China’s top financial minds are monetizing their expertise, and the numbers are eye-opening.
Hong Hao’s Explosive Growth
In late October, Hong Hao (Hong Hao 洪灏), former head of strategy at BOCOM International (Jiaoyin Guoji 交银国际), launched a paid knowledge membership.
His “Knowledge Planet” account, “Hong Hao’s Macro Strategy,” charges ¥899 RMB ($125 USD) per year.
Within two weeks: 9,500+ members joined, generating over ¥8.5 million RMB ($1.2 million USD).
Two months later: Membership exceeded 13,000, with conservative revenue estimates hitting over ¥11 million RMB ($1.5 million USD).
At that growth rate, annualized revenue could hit ¥66+ million RMB ($9.3 million USD) easily.
Other Players in the Game
Li Bei and Hong Hao aren’t the only ones.
Chief economists and star analysts like Liu Yuhui (Liu Yuhui 刘煜辉), Ren Zeping (Ren Zeping 任泽平), and others have launched paid content and social media e-commerce models.
The pattern is clear: Traditional finance is fragmenting.
Why This Trend Is Happening (And Why It Matters)
The financial industry in China is squeezing traditional talent in multiple ways:
- Brokerage salary cuts are real and ongoing
- Commission splits are declining as competition intensifies
- Star analysts face significant income gaps between their perceived value and actual compensation
- The business model that worked for 15 years is broken
Selling knowledge becomes a natural pivot—especially when you have a personal brand and a proven audience.
But there’s a catch.
The Sustainability Question: Is Paid Financial Content Worth It?
Experts warn that the market for paid financial content is getting saturated fast.
Here’s the reality:
- High-quality free financial content is abundant across platforms like WeChat, Zhihu, and financial news sites
- For paid content to survive, it needs to be extremely scarce and genuinely valuable
- A course or membership that regurgitates publicly available information won’t stick
- Investors are increasingly sophisticated—they can smell generic advice from a mile away
Li Bei’s pitch around “identifying scammers” and “avoiding financial traps” is clever positioning: it’s not about stock picks or market timing.
It’s about meta-skills—teaching people how to think about investing rather than what to do.
That’s harder to commoditize and copy.
But here’s the tension: If her recent calls have missed badly, why should anyone pay to learn from her?
Li Bei is betting that 20 years of industry experience, including both wins and losses, has real teaching value.
She’s also betting that people care more about how to think than what to think.
The Takeaway: Knowledge Commerce Is the New Moat
Whether Li Bei’s course succeeds or flops, one thing is clear: Traditional financial expertise is going direct-to-consumer.
The gatekeepers (brokerages, fund managers, institutional research teams) are losing their monopoly on information.
Talented analysts can now bypass traditional employers entirely and build audiences directly.
That’s a seismic shift for an industry that’s been hierarchical for decades.
Li Bei’s course might not revolutionize your investing, but it signals something bigger: the financialization of expertise is real, and China’s smartest minds are placing their bets on it.
Whether the market keeps paying for financial knowledge courses—especially when free alternatives abound—is the real question worth tracking.
