Home » Suning, Zhang resigns from the presidency after losing control of the company

Suning, Zhang resigns from the presidency after losing control of the company

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The era of Zhang Jindong at the head of the retail giant Suning.com comes to an end: the Chinese entrepreneur has resigned from the post of president and will assume that of honorary president.

The resignation was announced by the same company with an official note to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange which also explains that the functions of president will be carried out temporarily by Ren Jun, a member of the board of directors (and of the board of directors of Inter).

Zhang Jindong, on the other hand, will continue to act as advisor to the company “to ensure high quality development” and the continuity of the group. According to Caixin magazine, the change at the top will have to be approved by the shareholders on July 29th.

However, Suning.com’s future may still see the Zhang family at the top. The now former president of Suning has suggested the candidacy of his son, Zhang Kangyang – Steven Zhang, current president of Inter – as a candidate for the role of non-independent director: his name appears alongside those of Huang Mingduan, Xian Handi and Cao Qun, chosen by the company’s board of directors.

In addition to Zhang, three other group executives have resigned from the group he founded in 1990. Zhang Jindong studied Chinese literature at Nanjing Normal University, before starting Suning, who started his business. selling air conditioners. Over the past two decades, Suning has grown into a retail empire with outlets in all major Chinese cities.

At the height of its success, in 2015, Alibaba announced investments of $ 4.6 billion to combine its online business with Suning’s territory management. The group founded by Zhang Jindong gained global visibility the following year, with the purchase of a controlling stake in Inter Milan, which supported China’s global ambitions in football. The change at the top was welcomed by investors: the stock ended today’s session on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange up 1.3%.

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The resignation of Suning’s owner comes within days of losing control of the group: Suning sold a 16.96% stake to a consortium led by state funds and which includes large groups such as Alibaba, Midea, Haier and Xiaomi for 1, 36 billion dollars. The Chinese retail giant’s woes escalated last September when Zhang participated in bailing out the Evergrande Group from a liquidity crisis, and Suning suffered from a drop in sales due to slowing domestic consumption following the outbreak of the outbreak. COVID-19.

Last month, a court in Beijing had frozen three billion yuan (464 million dollars) of shares held by Zhang, or 5.8% of the group, causing the value of the stock to collapse on the lists. Creditors have reached an agreement to extend a bond from Suning Appliance Group, owned by Zhang, which has a net worth of $ 1 billion, according to Bloomberg’s latest estimates, a figure far from the peak of 11. 5 billion estimated in June 2015, when he was one of China’s richest entrepreneurs.

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