"There is a lot of help for the righteous, but little help for the unjust", this is the reader's evaluation of this incident under the article "Dong Yuhui and Yu Minhong finally parted ways" released by Wenlu yesterday.
It is not difficult to distinguish who is "enlightened" and who is "unjustified" among the two protagonists of the "breakup incident" from the side of public opinion on the breakup incident. Regarding the relationship between the two, and even whether Dong Yuhui and his peers with Hui will really be independent after independence in the future, there is also speculation from the outside world.
In order to answer questions from the outside world and to control the falling stock price of Oriental Selection as soon as possible, on July 26, Yu Minhong, founder of New Oriental and CEO of Oriental Selection, attended the exchange call of shareholders of Oriental Selection, and stated that New Oriental will not hold any shares with Hui at any time now and in the future. showed a resolute attitude to completely cut ties with Dong Yuhui and no longer have anything to do with the capital.
He also mentioned that in the past three months, his image has suffered a huge loss due to cyberbullying, and there is an endless stream of comments about his conspiracy, attacks, and abuse of employees on the Internet, as if he has become the most vicious capitalist and boss in the world. He himself doesn't care about outside comments, but it does affect the company's business development.
It is reasonable to say that Yu Minhong's explanation and response on the conference call are very sincere and "beautiful", but from the perspective of the interests of small shareholders in the Oriental Selection, how much can he believe his statement, but there will still be shareholders who question the meaning of this incident. Or it helps to walk with Hui and carry out a dark Chen Cang-style asset transfer.
The fairness of the purchase price was questioned
On the evening of July 25, Oriental Selection (01797. HK) announced that Dong Yuhui resigned and will acquire 100% of the shares of the company with Hui. In order to minimize the stock price turmoil caused by the uncertainty of capital, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui have both published their own letters, explaining why and why they should separate at this time from their own perspectives.
Judging from the various information that has been disclosed, from December 22, 2023 to June 30, 2024, the net profit of the company with Hui during the half-year period was as high as 140 million yuan, and the result was sold to Dong Yuhui at a price of 76.5855 million yuan.
As for the secret, the outside world is still unknown, and can only be speculated from the words of the information that has been made public. In January this year, Dongfang Selection held an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders, disclosing Dong Yuhui's earnings, saying that Hehui is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dongfang Selection, and it is guaranteed to be 100% controlled by Dongfang Selection. The company and Dong Yuhui will not get commissions like traditional MCN institutions, but more through equity, the company has given Dong Yuhui a lot of shares, in fact, he is bound to the company.
As for how many shares Dong Yuhui holds, the announcement did not disclose, and the industrial and commercial information did not show it. But this undoubtedly reveals two pieces of information: 1. Dong Yuhui personally owns a large number of shares with Hui, which may be held by some kind of agreement. 2. Dong Yuhui does not take sales commissions and earns equity dividends.
Yu Minhong also mentioned that "in order to express my gratitude to Yuhui, in addition to paying all the promised benefits, I have asked the board of directors and the remuneration committee to obtain consent to reward all the net profits of the company with Yuhui." That is, 140 million yuan of benefits were distributed to Dong Yuhui, and then 76.5855 million yuan was recovered by selling his peers with Hui to Dong Yuhui.
From this capital ratio, it is speculated that Dong Yuhui may have held nearly 50% of the shares of his peers with Hui. So judging from Dong Yuhui's solo flight this time, Yu Minhong doesn't want to score this money. Once it is ugly, Dong Yuhui can use the shareholding agreement to post a small essay on the Internet, and coerce the traffic to force the palace. In addition, for walking with Hui, Dong Yuhui is the core asset, Dong Yuhui flew solo, and it is even more meaningless to keep walking with Hui.
And a source said that Dongfang Selection not only exempted Dong Yuhui from liquidated damages and non-compete agreements, but also provided Dong Yuhui with venues, personnel, and "a system based on pallet and supply chain management". "From the perspective of supply chain, for example, the supply chain personnel of Dong Yuhui's new team are currently transferred from Dongfang Selection, and if they both live broadcast the same products with Hui and Dongfang Selection, there will be no breach of contract."
Therefore, Yu Minhong chose a very "Jianghu" and the most advantageous way to deal with it, but the small shareholders were not satisfied. At present, there are already voices questioning, "Yu Minhong is so disrespectful to shareholders, he manages and manages everything, and sells assets at a low price." Major shareholders encroach on the interests due to minority shareholders. ”
In fact, there is some truth to this speculation. First of all, although Yu Minhong has implored the board of directors and the remuneration committee to agree to reward Dong Yuhui with 140 million yuan. However, on issues such as the sale of the company at a price of 76 million, there was no relevant shareholders' meeting information announcement before the release.
Secondly, Yu Minhong made a supplementary explanation in his personal Douyin comment area, "Yuhui holds the equity purchase money required to walk with Hui, and I will also arrange to pay it in a manner that complies with the rules of the listed company and the articles of association of the company." This sentence means that I arranged the money for Yuhui to buy the company, and the company gave it to Yuhui.
looks like a domineering president who is bent on the interests of employees, open-minded and extremely generous, and can't help but say it with special emphasis in the comment area. However, some netizens believe that this is to block the mouth of public opinion, especially Dong Yuhui's more radical "mother-in-law", don't go to his personal accounts on major social media to scold and spend money to buy clean.
"Privatization" in disguise, waiting to reshape valuation?
But from another "more businessman" perspective, this may be another asset transfer that Yu Minhong had to do.
Due to the Dongfang Xiaosun incident, the contradiction between Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Selection was fully made public. Subsequently, in order to balance the two sides, Yu Minhong set up a walk with Hui for Dong Yuhui. Although the company has independent accounting and independent management rights, Dong Yuhui can only decide what to sell and what not to sell, and the supply chain and personnel incentives are still determined by Dongfang Selection.
In the actual business process, Dong Yuhui's fan group's ability to "make trouble" is not bad. Dongfang Selection will be pulled out at every turn to compare with Dong Yuhui's new team, from the number of viewers in the live broadcast room, to the amount of goods, to the number of fans accumulated on the platform, every time it falls behind or the advantage is not so obvious, it will attract "group ridicule" from public opinion, and then the fluctuation of stock price.
In particular, the performance of the Guizhou tour of the "See the World" column of Oriental Selection not only made the inviting party Guizhou Cultural Tourism delete the relevant content cleanly, but also pulled down the live broadcast room and anchors of Oriental Selection that became popular by culture.
Dongfang Selection revealed that in the second half of fiscal year 2024 (December 2023 to May 2024), the GMV of Dongfang Selection's self-operated products exceeded 3.6 billion yuan; In the first half of fiscal year 2024 (June 1 to November 30, 2023), its revenue was 2.8 billion yuan and its net profit was only 250 million yuan.
From December 22, 2023 to June 30, 2024, the GMV exceeded 4 billion yuan and the net profit was as high as 140 million yuan during the half-year period. And in the first three months of this year, the sales of the live broadcast room with Hui were 889 million yuan, 450 million yuan, and 626 million yuan respectively. In contrast, the sales of Dongfang Selection's live broadcast room in the same period were 557 million yuan, 228 million yuan, and 286 million yuan respectively.
It can be said that Dong Yuhui is the core asset of Peer with Hui, and Peer with Hui is the core asset of Oriental Selection. In this context, it is unrealistic to say that there is no contradiction between Dongfang Selection and Dong Yuhui.
Secondly, in the past six months, the share price of Dongfang Selection has almost halved. This is due to the contradictory factors of public opinion with Hui and Dongfang Selection, as well as the overall trend of Hong Kong stocks. But in any case, it is not beneficial to continue to stay with Hui in the Oriental selection system from the perspective of capital operation.
The low valuation of Oriental Selection will also affect the peers in the inverted system. It is better to use some kind of privatization means to split the Hui peers from the listed company system, which can not only make the Hui peers less transparent, but also reshape the valuation of the Hui peers in the future, in the current Hong Kong stock market, similar operations abound, but the prices are relatively fair.
Therefore, some industry insiders speculate that or in the future, the two will establish a capital relationship that is not easy to detect on the surface, and they will part ways on the surface, but in fact they are still a family, and the meat is still rotten in Yu Minhong's own "pot". When the time is ripe, it may also be invested and bought back by New Oriental Group or other affiliated companies in the future, which is feasible from an operational perspective.
Although in this afternoon's conference call, Yu Minhong categorically said that he would not hold any shares with Hui in the future, but the matter of capital is not 100% absolute, and some netizens still believe that this live broadcast is also a "performance", and giving the company with Hui to Dong Yuhui is a damage to the interests of shareholders and a serious irresponsibility to small and medium-sized shareholders.
And judging from Dong Yuhui's own reaction, after the news of his resignation was exposed, he expressed his gratitude to Yu Minhong three times in the form of his own statement and reply in the comment area of Yu Minhong's personal account, and also mentioned his former leader Mr. Sun and the former platform Dongfang Selection in his response, and expressed his gratitude together, and did a very decent and leaky job. Leaving a "live buckle" for countless possibilities in the future.
As for the conflict with Hui and Dongfang Selection, if they are not in the Dongfang Selection system, they will also have a public opinion impact on Dongfang Selection. None of this matters in terms of potential, longer-term business interests.
However, these things have not been clearly put on the table by Dongfang Selection, they are just a little speculation drawn from the clues of the people who eat melons in the industry. However, no matter how "Jianghu" Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui performed this time, it is still difficult to jump out of the issue of protecting the interests of small and medium-sized shareholders.
Today, Oriental Selection opened sharply lower, plummeting 28% to HK$8.92, a new low since June 2022, and down 88% from the high of HK$75.55 in January 2023. As of the close of 16:00 Beijing time, the share price of Oriental Selection was finally fixed at HK$9.5, with a total market capitalization of HK$9.797 billion. Whether Yu Minhong's phone call can help Dongfang Selection stop the decline and completely turn over the turbulent impact brought by Dong Yuhui will have to wait for the opening performance next week to give an answer.
The picture comes from the photo.com and the screenshot of the network