Shanxi Fenjiu announced a change of coach, and the continuity of high-speed growth remains to be seen

On December 19, Shanxi Fenjiu announced that Yuan Qingmao, former secretary of the party committee and chairman of Shanxi Transportation Holding Group Co., Ltd., would take over Li Qiuxi's "handsome position". In the industry's view, a series of reforms promoted by Li Qiuxi have accelerated the revival of Shanxi Fenjiu, the reform is still halfway through, the industry competition is rapidly intensifying, and how to deal with new challenges after the new coach takes office is worthy of attention.

According to the announcement, on December 17, due to his retirement, Li Qiuxi applied to resign as chairman, director, chairman of the strategic committee of the board of directors, and member of the nomination committee of Shanxi Fenjiu, and will no longer hold any position. At the same time, Shanxi Fenjiu received a letter from the controlling shareholder, Fenjiu Group, recommending Yuan Qingmao as the new director and chairman of Shanxi Fenjiu.

In the announcement, Shanxi Fenjiu expressed its heartfelt thanks to Li Qiuxi for his dedication and diligence during his tenure, played an active role in the standardized operation and healthy development of the company, and made important contributions to corporate governance, strategic planning, market construction, brand building and other aspects.

Shanxi Fenjiu was once the "Fen boss" of Chinese liquor during the prevalence of fragrant liquor, but with the transfer of liquor aroma type and the rise of strong aromatic liquor, Shanxi Fenjiu turned into a downward slope. In 2009, Li Qiuxi officially served as the chairman of Fenjiu Group. After taking office, Li Qiuxi gradually promoted internal and external reforms, especially in 2017, Fenjiu Group became the first reform pilot unit in the reform of state-owned enterprises in Shanxi Province to sign a letter of responsibility for targets, Li Qiuxi made a "military order" on behalf of Fenjiu Group to increase revenue for three years, through the introduction of war investment, internal integration and national expansion, Shanxi Fenjiu achieved rapid growth in performance, and the revenue scale increased from 6.04 billion yuan in 2017 to 17.26 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2021.

Liquor expert Cai Xuefei told the first financial reporter that the performance of Shanxi Fenjiu in recent years is closely related to the operation and innovation of Li Qiuxi's team for many years, and it has completed many achievements in the mixed reform of Fenjiu, nationalization, product structure upgrading and other aspects during his tenure, because the age has passed 60 years old, its retirement is a normal management change.

It is worth noting that at the end of last week, there were already rumors in the market that Fenjiu was about to change coaches, but in the two trading days of last Thursday and Friday, Shanxi Fenjiu fell by 6.57% and 2.78% respectively.

The reporter checked public information and found that the development background of Shanxi Transportation Holding Group previously led by Yuan Qingmao and Shanxi Fenjiu in recent years is similar, the former was established in November 2017, which is also the key task of Shanxi Province in order to deepen the reform of the transportation management system, realize the separation of government and enterprises, and accelerate the establishment of a modern comprehensive transportation system.

In Cai Xuefei's view, the new successor has a similar background to Li Qiuxi and has more government resources, and has a certain influence on the future political management of Fenjiu, as well as the strategic development direction of the enterprise, and the integration of state-owned assets. However, the management style of each leader will affect the strategic decision-making of the enterprise, and Shanxi Fenjiu still needs to go through a certain transition period after the change of coach, and the results remain to be seen.

In addition, in the third quarter of this year, Shanxi Fenjiu achieved operating income of 17.26 billion yuan in the first three quarters, an increase of 66.2% year-on-year; net profit attributable to the mother was 4.88 billion yuan, an increase of 95.1% year-on-year, and the growth came from the upgrading of product structure and a new round of nationalization, especially the market south of the Yangtze River as an incremental focus, which is still being cultivated.

In the industry's view, how to maintain the continuous sales and channel construction of the new market in the next step of Shanxi Fenjiu; how to further enhance the quality education and category value of clear-flavored liquor, and how to deal with the strong competition between first-line famous liquors are all problems that the new shuai will face soon.