(Yicai Global) Sept. 14 -- Rumors that one of China's biggest insurers Ping An Insurance Group will stop actively managing stock accounts and sell off shares are fictitious, according to an executive at the firm.

Asset management is one of Ping An's core business areas and it is a general rule that the Shenzhen-based firm will always look to develop in the field in a sustainable and healthy way, an unidentified company executive told Shanghai Security News.

Speculation that the firm would shut down its active stock investment business and transfer funds into passive artificial investments had been doing the rounds after a screenshot suggesting as much emerged on social media platform WeChat.

Ping An holds a host of subsidiaries, such as Ping An Life Insurance, Ping An Asset Management and Ping An Entrusted Investment, and through its network of units has shares in a range of blue chip companies which saw their share prices slump today.

It has CNY19.8 billion (USD2.9 billion) worth of shares, or a 1 percent stake, in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest lender. It also holds CNY3.2 billion, or 5 percent, in Bank of Shanghai, and CNY3 billion, a 2 percent holding, in China Yangtze Power. All three of those stocks closed down.

Shares in some of the smaller companies it invests in also struggled, with New Trend International Logis-Tech diving 3.8 percent, Asymchem Laboratories slipping 3.56 percent and Sichuan Jiuyuan Yinhai Software falling 2.54 percent at the close.

Editor: James Boynton