E Fund Management Co, China's second-largest mutual fund management firm, has fired Ma Xide, a fixed-income portfolio manager, for alleged illicit bond trading.

Ma, who joined E Fund in May 2008, was dismissed on Saturday after confirming that he had been tried by a court in March for alleged misconduct, the firm said in the statement.

E Fund, which managed 40 mutual funds with assets under management worth nearly 200 billion yuan as of December 2012, said in a statement released on Sunday that it had no knowledge of the allegations against Ma until media reported them. This was because Ma told the firm he had to attend to a family emergency last month.

Ma was tried by a court in Ningxiang County in Hunan Province in March for allegedly conspiring with other people to misappropriate funds and conduct illegal bond trading, the provincial Sanxiang City Express reported last Friday.

Ma and his accomplices allegedly embezzled 3.5 billion yuan (US$565 million) from their companies from March to December 2008 and made an illicit profit of 49 million yuan by trading bonds through a company they established in the province, the report said, citing the court which did not give a verdict on the trial.