Oriental selection changed from 3 to 2

Zebra consumption Fan Jian

Yu Minhong finally made the choice of "not one or the other".

On December 16, Dongfang Selection stopped broadcasting for a day and thought about it behind closed doors. Soon, the company's board of directors decided to remove Sun Dongxu as executive director and CEO, and Yu Minhong, chairman of the board, concurrently served as chairman.

In the eyes of the outside world, Mr. Yu's choice is correct. After all, it is relatively easy to find a CEO with an annual salary of 10 million, and at this stage, Dong Yuhui is indispensable for Dongfang selection.

The CEO twice came out to "hold a meeting" and apologize; Dong Yuhui made an explanation; Yu Minhong personally issued a statement, but more than 10 days have passed, and the heat of public opinion has not dissipated.

During this period, Dongfang Selection lost its fans sharply, from more than 30 million to more than 20 million, and at the same time, the company's stock price fell from more than 30 Hong Kong dollars to more than 20 Hong Kong dollars.

There must be someone who comes out to take responsibility, and this person can only be CEO Sun Dongxu. Otherwise, it will be dangerous for Dongfang Selection to continue like this "2".

On the evening of the 16th, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui appeared in the personal live broadcast room to chat about the recent small essay incident. It seems that all the discrepancies have been explained clearly, but the audience still reads more voiceovers from Dong Yuhui's heavy face.

The Iron Triangle is missing one

In the past 30 years, Yu Minhong has encountered too many crises, and in the end, he has used his wisdom to let the company smoothly through the storm.

Now, 61-year-old Yu Minhong has to urgently take over the position of CEO of Dongfang Selection again, leading a group of young anchors to regain confidence in the live broadcast room.

On December 16, Oriental Selection (01797. HK) made an urgent decision to remove Sun Dongxu as executive director and CEO, and Yu Minhong, chairman of the board, personally concurrently served as the chairman.

The public opinion incident of the Oriental selection triggered by the "small composition" lasted more than ten days and was always cloudy. If anyone has to be responsible for this, it can only be CEO Sun Dongxu.

Yu Minhong knows very well that at this stage, Dong Yuhui's selection in the East is too important. Faced with the choice of not "choosing one of the two", Mr. Yu finally chose to "cut the horse with tears".

Dongfang Selection, as a live broadcast company that relies on Dong Yuhui and other anchors to support in front of the stage, the company's editor suddenly publicly competed with the anchor for a "small composition", just like the leader was making a speech, and the secretary suddenly jumped on the stage and said, "I wrote this speech." This is too abnormal.

Whether it was instructed by someone or the editor was too bold to make his own opinion, the outside world does not know. But in the handling of this matter, CEO Sun Dongxu not only failed to calm down the incident, but instead angrily "held a meeting" in the live broadcast room and smashed his mobile phone in response to the incident, adding fuel to the fire.

Afterwards, Yu Minhong personally came out to issue a statement, and Sun Dongxu sincerely apologized, but he still could not calm public opinion. In the whole incident, Xiao Sun mishandled it and should be held responsible.

Sun Dongxu was ambitious as a young man, but he looked old. Born in 1986, he graduated from Nankai University with a bachelor's degree in 2007 and joined New Oriental as a teacher.

Yu Minhong is quite serious about it. He has successively served as the president of the branch, the regional president, and the vice president of the company. In 2019, at the age of 33, he was promoted to executive director and CEO of New Oriental Online (later renamed "Oriental Selection"), with an annual salary of more than 10 million. On February 7 and 8 this year, he continuously reduced his holdings of Oriental Selection stocks at a high level, cashing out HK $217 million in one fell swoop.

When Sun Dongxu was the principal of New Oriental Xi'an Branch, Dong Yuhui was a general English training teacher under him.

Later, because of the "double reduction", New Oriental's education and training business was impacted. Under the leadership of Yu Minhong, the company transformed into a live broadcast with goods, and a group of former training teachers such as Dong Yuhui turned into live broadcast anchors. Take advantage of the unique advantages of "knowledge-based" anchors to achieve success in one fell swoop.

The road is basically smooth, and Yu Minhong gradually hides behind the scenes, responsible for the company's overall strategy. Sun Dongxu led the anchors and shouted hard in front of the stage.

Dongfang Selection has formed an "iron triangle" composed of Yu Minhong + Sun Dongxu + Dong Yuhui (anchor).

More than 2 million fans ran

In July 2021, the "double reduction" policy was implemented. As a veteran who has been immersed in the education and training industry for 30 years, Yu Minhong knows very well that "the era of education and training is over".

At the end of that year, New Oriental vacated its branches in batches and donated tens of thousands of idle desks and chairs to remote mountainous areas. Yu Minhong, who has always shown himself as a positive energy entrepreneur, has won the reputation of "real man" for himself.

The suspension of business, the closure of branch campuses, and the donation of tables and chairs have brought tens of billions of losses to New Oriental.

Fortunately, New Oriental has plenty of cash on its books. This is an iron law set by Yu Minhong for the company after the SARS suspension and refund crisis in 2003. With sufficient cash, to ensure that the company suddenly closes down, there can be money to refund the tuition fees of students and pay employees' salaries.

In one fell swoop, cutting off the most profitable K12 education and training business, New Oriental is tantamount to cutting off his arms, and Yu Minhong has to find a new way out for the company.

During this period, New Oriental carried out difficult transformation and diversification exploration, and made agricultural education a new direction, established a platform for agricultural products, and helped the sales of agricultural products with the help of its own channels and training capabilities.

For a long time, Yu Minhong frequently appeared in the Douyin live broadcast room in person, participated in the live broadcast activities of helping farmers, and shouted and sold honeydew melons from Gansu and ham from Yunnan.

At 8 p.m. on December 28, 2021, Dongfang Selection officially started the journey of bringing goods on Douyin live broadcast. Prior to this, New Oriental has recruited and selected anchors from all staff to start the MCN project. Dong Yuhui and a group of other former training teachers have become anchor candidates through layers of screening.

At that time, in the same live broadcast of goods, Dong Yuhui and other teacher-born anchors either used bilingual or chanted poems to write, and jokes and chicken soup came out of their mouths, becoming a "clear stream" in the live broadcast industry.

In the past two years, the number of fans of Dongfang Selection has grown rapidly, exceeding 30 million in one fell swoop.

After the small composition incident, a large number of Douyin users with the fan card of the "selection group" frantically poured into the live broadcast room of Gaotu Jiapin, a direct competitor of Dongfang Selection.

In just a few days, the growth of Gaotu Jiapin fans has broken through the bottleneck, from more than 600,000 to more than 2 million in one fell swoop, and the number of viewers and transaction amount in the live broadcast room have also reached new highs.

One trades off the other. The number of fans selected by Dongfang fell to more than 28 million, and more than 2 million fans turned their heads and left.

The stock price fell to a stage low

finally led the company to transform and created a good situation, Yu Minhong will not allow it to be cut off so easily.

The introduction of the "double reduction" policy, how difficult it is for Yu Minhong. On July 23, 2021, New Oriental's share price fell by 50% overnight, tens of billions of market value was wiped out, and New Oriental Online also fell by 30% in an instant.

It was not until Dongfang Selection's live broadcast business made great progress that the parent company New Oriental was able to raise its eyebrows again, and its stock price rose all the way, and its market value returned to $10 billion.

Dongfang Selection, as a direct operation platform, has ushered in a beautiful upline since June last year. From less than 5 Hong Kong dollars per share, it has risen all the way to a high of more than 70 Hong Kong dollars per share at the beginning of this year, and the market value has exceeded 60 billion Hong Kong dollars.

What stimulates the stock price is not only the popularity of Dongfang Selection, but also the tangible performance.

In September this year, the company disclosed its results for the 2023 fiscal year ended May 31 this year, with total revenue soaring 651% to 4.5 billion yuan from 601 million yuan in the previous fiscal year, and turning losses into profits in one fell swoop, achieving a net profit of 971 million yuan.

Live streaming has replaced education and training and has become the company's absolute main business, and the GMV has exceeded 10 billion yuan in the whole fiscal year. Behind this brilliant achievement, Dong Yuhui is a well-deserved absolute hero.

After the stock price soared at the beginning of the year, affected by a series of events such as high-level cash-out and suspected false propaganda by CEOs and other executives, Dongfang Selection's share price continued to fluctuate downward, and on May 18, it once hit a stage low of HK$22.65.

Subsequently, Dongfang Selection actively adjusted, especially after violating the rules of Douyin and stopping broadcasting, the company quickly turned to self-operated APP live broadcast, and achieved a big breakthrough in sales. On July 28 alone, the company's stock price jumped nearly 29%.

Recently, affected by the small composition incident, the stock price of Oriental Selection has fallen sharply again. On December 15, it closed at HK$25.50 per share, with a total market capitalization of HK$26.64 billion, the lowest point in nearly half a year. In just one week, the market value evaporated by two percent, and more than HK$7.5 billion was wiped out.

The parent company of Gaotu Jiapin, Gaotu, has been making great progress in the capital market with the rise of attention. From the 11th to the 14th, it rose by 6.16%, 17.41%, 7.27% and 29.27% in a row.

On the evening of the dismissal of Sun Dongxu as CEO, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui appeared in a high-profile personal live broadcast room to talk about the recent ups and downs of the small essay incident.

After more than ten days, Dong Yuhui appeared in the public eye again. His face was full of exhaustion, and he was unusually heavy throughout the live broadcast.

In June last year, an organization invited him to join with a sky-high offer, but he did not leave; in the last ten days, Dong Yuhui, who was on vacation, was even more overpowered, and he did not answer.

I believe that in a few days, Dong Yuhui will return to the live broadcast room of Dongfang Selection again. However, after experiencing such a big turmoil, can he return to the original state?