Two chairmen resigned within a year What happened to Gui Faxiang

On the evening of May 20, Gui Faxiang (002820) issued an announcement that Li Mingxiang had resigned as chairman, and this was only 10 months after Li Mingxiang was elected chairman. In fact, since Li Mingxiang took over Wu Hong in July last year, whether Gui Faxiang's performance will usher in new changes has always been a concern from the outside world. However, judging from the results of the 2020 annual report handed over by Gui Faxiang, it is difficult to satisfy investors, and Gui Faxiang's net profit attributable to Gui Faxiang fell by more than 70% in 2020. Especially under the impact of the epidemic, such a report card is nothing less than worse. Gui Faxiang, known as the "first share of twist flowers", where is the next stop?

Chairman vacancies

On the evening of May 20, Gui Faxiang released an announcement showing that Chairman Li Mingxiang submitted a written resignation report to the board of directors on May 20, 2021, and resigned as the company's legal representative, chairman of the third board of directors and chairman of the strategic committee due to work reasons.

Li Mingxiang's tenure is not long. According to the announcement disclosed by Gui Faxiang, the company held the thirteenth meeting of the third board of directors on July 13, 2020, when Li Mingxiang was elected as the chairman of the third board of directors of the company, and the term of office was from the date of deliberation and approval of the board of directors to the expiration date of the third board of directors. In terms of time, Li Mingxiang's tenure is less than a year.

The Beijing Business Daily reporter noted that in the past three years, Gui Faxiang's important leadership position of chairman has changed frequently. According to the announcement disclosed by Gui Faxiang, the third term of the company's board of directors has been for a three-year term since September 25, 2018.

It is understood that on September 25, 2018, Wu Hong was elected as the chairman of the third board of directors of Gui Faxiang. On the evening of July 7, 2020, Gui Faxiang issued an announcement that Chairman Wu Hong submitted a written resignation report to the board of directors for work reasons. With effect from July 7, 2020, Wu Hong will no longer serve as the company's legal representative, chairman and director of the third board of directors, nor will he serve as the chairman of the strategy committee, subsidiaries and any other company positions.

Whether it is Wu Hong or Li Mingxiang, both resigned before the expiration of their term of office, which can be described as the "chairman of the flowing water". Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in the Chinese food industry, said in an interview with the Beijing Business Daily reporter that all the changes in personnel, the adjustment of organizational structure, and the frequent changes in senior management are basically caused by performance problems.

On the evening of May 20, Gui Faxiang also announced that with the consent of all the directors of the third board of directors of the company, feng Guodong, a director, was elected to perform the duties of the chairman of the board of directors until the board of directors elected the new chairman. The company will complete the change of the chairman of the board of directors and the legal representative as soon as possible in accordance with the relevant regulations. After Li Mingxiang resigned as chairman of the board, he continued to serve as a director of Gui Faxiang's third board of directors, a member of the strategy committee, and the general manager of the company.

The impact of the epidemic has hit performance hard

It is true that as Zhu Danpeng said, Gui Faxiang's performance in 2020 has been hit hard.

According to Gui Faxiang, the company is a chinese time-honored enterprise specializing in the research and development, production and sales of traditional characteristics and other leisure foods, and the company's products include traditional characteristic leisure foods represented by the 18th Street twist, as well as other snack foods such as pastries, sweet chestnuts, and nuts.

According to financial data, Gui Faxiang's operating income in 2020 was about 349 million yuan, down 31.29% year-on-year; the corresponding net profit attributable to it was about 25.0371 million yuan, down 70.41% year-on-year. In 2020, Gui Faxiang achieved a net profit after deducting non-profit of about 12.6592 million yuan during the reporting period, down 84.12% year-on-year.

As for the reasons for the decline in performance, Gui Faxiang attributed it to "affected by the epidemic, the total retail sales of social consumer goods in Tianjin in 2020 fell by 15.1% compared with last year, especially the population flow restrictions had a greater impact on tourism specialty products, resulting in a decline in the company's operating performance".

According to the division of sales areas, in 2020, the operating income of Guifaxiang Tianjin was about 344 million yuan, down 30.87% year-on-year, and the operating income of other regions was about 4.2448 million yuan, down 53.8% year-on-year.

In fact, since its listing in 2016, Gui Faxiang's performance has been mediocre. According to the data, from 2016 to 2019, Gui Faxiang achieved operating income of about 458 million yuan, 486 million yuan, 481 million yuan and 507 million yuan, and the net profit attributable to it was about 0.92 billion yuan, 0.93 billion yuan, 0.84 billion yuan and 0.85 billion yuan, respectively.

However, in Zhu Danpeng's view, from the overall change in Gui Faxiang's performance in 2020, it is based on the epidemic. However, under the impact of the epidemic, we have also seen that many companies are doing well. Zhu Danpeng further said that it should be said that there is a problem with Gui Faxiang's overall strategic layout, and behind the strategic layout, more is that product innovation, upgrading and iteration cannot keep up with the rhythm of consumption upgrading at the consumer end, which is the core reason why it falls into the performance dilemma.

In response to the company's related problems, the Beijing Business Daily reporter called gui faxiang's secretary office for an interview, but the other party's phone was not answered.

"In the future, Gui Faxiang must exert efforts in the five aspects of the stability of the entire quality, the activation of the brand, the innovation of the scene, the improvement of the service system, and the improvement of customer stickiness." Otherwise, the overall development prospects for the future are still very worrying. Zhu Danpeng said.

It is worth mentioning that the willingness of some shareholders of Gui Faxiang to reduce their holdings is also very strong. On May 6, Gui Faxiang issued an announcement showing that the company's original shareholder, Zhonghua Jindian Food Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhonghua Jindian"),) and its co-actor Zhonghua Traditional Food Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhonghua Traditional") completed the reduction plan on April 30, 2021, and the two sides reduced their holdings by a total of 1.8722203 million shares, and the shares reduced by Zhonghua Jindian and Zhonghua Traditional were all from the shares held by the company before the initial public offering of shares. After the completion of the reduction, Zhonghua Jindian and Zhonghua Tradition no longer hold shares in the company.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Liu Fengru