Its original shareholders were four Chinese brokerage houses: Guosen Securities, Zhejiang Securities, Anshan Trust & Investment Corp. and Anhui International Trust & Investment Corp [1][2][3] In August 2000, it was reported that Penghua would sign a cooperation agreement with the Hong Kong unit of Invesco.

However, in October 2002, it was reported that Invesco decided to terminate its cooperation agreement with Penghua and formed a joint venture with Great Wall Securities instead.

[4] The rules of the China Securities Regulatory Commission made it difficult for Invesco to set up a joint venture with Penghua as it was already an established fund management company.

Penghua had multiple owners and the most prominent one was the Shenzhen municipal government which made negotiations more difficult while Great Wall Securities was owned by Huaneng Power International (51%) and China Merchants Bank (25%).

[2][6] In June 2015, Penghua teamed up with Vanke to the launch the first public real estate investment trust in China, the Penghua-Qianhai-Vanke REIT.