What Does the Xiangpiaopiao Exit Say About the China Coffee Market?

Xiangpiaopiao announced on October 21 that general manager Yang Dongyun resigned for personal reasons less than a year after joining in December. Founder Jiang Jianqi has retaken the general manager role. The company had brought Yang in from P&G and Baixiang Food to push de-familialization, and Jiang transferred shares worth 276 million yuan to him.

First-half results still failed to turn profitable, and Yang was absent from investor communication. The episode matters for the wider china coffee market because it shows how hard it is for established consumer brands to install outside management. Whether the professional-manager experiment continues is now an open question.

Xiangpiaopiao recently announced that externally hired general manager Yang Dongyun resigned for personal reasons, less than a year after taking office. This seasoned manager, who previously worked at P&G and Baixiang Food, had been highly expected to drive the company's de-familialization, and Jiang Jianqi even transferred shares worth 276 million yuan to bring him into the shareholder ranks. However, first-half performance still failed to turn profitable, and Yang Dongyun was also absent from all investor communication activities. As founder Jiang Jianqi once again takes on the role of general manager, has Xiangpiaopiao's professional manager experiment come to an end? This article sorts through the sequence of events and key information.

On October 21, Xiangpiaopiao announced that the company's board of directors had recently received a written resignation report from director and general manager (president) Yang Dongyun. Yang Dongyun applied to resign from the above position for personal reasons, and the resignation report took effect on the date it was delivered to the board of directors, after which he no longer held any position in the company.

On the same day, Xiangpiaopiao stated that it agreed to appoint Jiang Jianqi as the company's general manager, effective from the date the board of directors approved the proposal, with a term ending on the date the fourth board of directors' term expires.

It should be noted that Yang Dongyun was a professional manager brought in by Xiangpiaopiao with a high salary, only joining in December last year, and had served as general manager for less than a year.

In December last year, Xiangpiaopiao announced that, in order to further optimize the company's governance structure, improve governance standards, and comprehensively consider long-term development plans, company chairman and general manager Jiang Jianqi applied to resign as general manager and would continue to serve as chairman after resignation. At the same time, the board of directors decided to hire Yang Dongyun as general manager.

Public information shows that Yang Dongyun was born in 1971 and holds a bachelor's degree. His professional experience includes: project manager, regional manager, and category director at Procter & Gamble Guangzhou; deputy general manager and general manager of Triumph Group China; vice president of Asia Pacific at Yida Group, concurrently general manager of China and president of Japan; senior vice president of Super 8 Hotels; executive president/vice president and director of Baixiang Food Group, a quite rich resume.

According to media reports, during his time at Baixiang, Yang Dongyun personally led the product development and market promotion of Baixiang Jingdun Dagumian, successfully turning it into a hit product with sales reaching 2 billion yuan.

After taking office, Yang Dongyun and Xiangpiaopiao also had a period of harmonious cooperation. Not long after joining, Jiang Jianqi transferred about 5% of the company's shares to Yang Dongyun at a price of 13.43 yuan per share, with a total price of 276 million yuan, making Yang Dongyun the company's fifth-largest shareholder.

In addition, Yang Dongyun later invested 8.28 million yuan to increase his holdings of the company's shares in the secondary market. According to the announcement, Yang Dongyun currently holds 21.5274 million shares of the company, accounting for 5.24% of the company's total share capital.

In May this year, Xiangpiaopiao products trended on social media for implicitly mocking nuclear-contaminated water, and Yang Dongyun appeared in the company's livestream, announcing rewards for relevant employees, and livestream sales once rose sharply.

However, Xiangpiaopiao's short-term performance did not improve significantly. In the first half of the year, the company achieved revenue of 1.179 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.75%; net profit attributable to shareholders showed a loss of 29.5011 million yuan, compared with a loss of 44.0426 million yuan in the same period last year. In terms of stock price, as of October 22, Xiangpiaopiao closed at 11.89 yuan per share, down 26.83% year to date.

Another point worthy of attention is that after the release of the half-year report at the end of August, Xiangpiaopiao issued a total of 7 investor relations activity records, and Yang Dongyun did not participate in any of them. Now, the news of his resignation has finally landed.

Some analysts believe that Yang Dongyun's resignation may mean that Xiangpiaopiao's attempt at de-familialization was unsuccessful.

It is understood that Xiangpiaopiao is a typical family business. Since its founding in 2005, founder Jiang Jianqi has always simultaneously served as the company's chairman and general manager, and nearly all major shareholders are Jiang Jianqi's immediate family members.

According to Tianyancha information, among Xiangpiaopiao's shareholders, Jiang Jianqi himself holds 50.44%, his younger brother Jiang Jianbin holds 8.76%, his wife Lu Jiahua holds 7.01%, and his daughter Jiang Xiaoying holds 4.38%.

Image source: Internet

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.