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Our reporter Sun Jizheng reports from Beijing

On the morning of July 18, a screenshot of a document in which Zong Fuli, vice chairman and general manager of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd., submitted her resignation proposal was widely circulated on the Internet. In response, a reporter from China Business News contacted Wahaha, but Wahaha has not yet responded.

On February 25, 2024, Zong Qinghou, the founder and chairman of Wahaha, died of illness at the age of 79. Zong Fuli, the daughter of Zong Qinghou and the general manager of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd., is also regarded by the outside world as Zong Qinghou's successor.

After Zong Qinghou's death, Zong Fuli, as the general manager of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd., began to attend various business activities on behalf of Wahaha, and announced this year that Wahaha's sales in the first half of the year exceeded 50 billion yuan. As the current successor of Zong Qinghou, Zong Fuli became the female entrepreneur with the highest shareholding value in the latest "New Fortune 500 Wealth Creation List" with 80.83 billion yuan.

It is worth noting that according to Tianyancha, in the Wahaha Group, Hangzhou State-owned Assets holds 46% of the shares and is the largest shareholder; Zong Qinghou holds 29.4% of the shares and is the second largest shareholder; and the Wahaha Employee Stock Ownership Association holds 24.6% of the shares.

Relevant data shows that after the dispute between Wahaha and Danone ended, Hangzhou State-owned Assets replaced Danone in 2008 and officially became the majority shareholder of Wahaha. However, during Zong Qinghou's tenure, Wahaha's management rights always belonged to Zong Qinghou. Wahaha's private equity shares include Zong Qinghou's 29.4% and the employee stock ownership platform's 24.6%, which together reach 54%, and the shareholding ratio is still dominated by private capital.

Zong Qinghou once disclosed that Wahaha has achieved employee shareholding, and the total number of its shareholders has reached 15,000. According to Southern Weekend, some of the shares of Wahaha Employee Shareholding Association have been repurchased. The withdrawal of shares began around the Spring Festival of 2018. According to online news, Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd. Employee Shareholding Association, as the share repurchaser, paid a total of 3 yuan for each share repurchased, of which 2 yuan was paid to the shareholding employees in the form of special dividend returns and 1 yuan was used as the share repurchase price. The identity of the equity repurchaser has not been disclosed to the public. Therefore, the current owner of the third largest shareholder, Wahaha Employee Shareholding Association, remains a mystery.

Although Zong Qinghou has passed away for nearly five months, Zong Fuli has not directly held shares. To this day, the legal representative of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd. is still Zong Qinghou. According to the "Company Registration Management Regulations", after the death of the legal representative of a company, an application for change of legal representative registration must be made within 30 days. If the change registration is not made within the time limit, the company will face the punishment of being ordered to correct, fined, or even revoked the company registration.

Shen Meng, executive director of Xiangsong Capital, believes that within nearly five months after Zong Qinghou's death, the legal person and shares of Wahaha Group still belong to Zong Qinghou without any replacement, indicating that there is a dispute over the legal representative and equity succession of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd. Moreover, Wahaha is also state-controlled in terms of equity structure. Even if Zong Fuli inherits all of Zong Qinghou's 29.4% equity, it will be difficult for her to compete with the majority shareholder.

According to relevant sources, there were personnel changes in Wahaha's senior management after Zong Qinghou's death, but the specific reasons are still unknown.

Zong Fuli has always been known as the daughter of Zong Qinghou, and other members of the Zong family rarely appear in public. The reporter noted that Tianyancha information shows that Zong Fuli actually controls 94 companies, including Hangzhou Wahaha Food Co., Ltd. and Wahaha Beverage Co., Ltd. of the Wahaha system. Hengfeng Trading Co., Ltd., the major shareholder of Hongsheng Beverage Group Co., Ltd. founded by Zong Fuli, is an overseas company.

In addition, Tianyancha also shows that Zong Fuli and Zong Jichang are executives of Nanjing Wahaha Beverage Co., Ltd., Tianjin Wahaha Food Co., Ltd., Shenyang Wahaha Rongtai Food Co., Ltd., Dali Wahaha Beverage Co., Ltd., and Shuangcheng Wahaha Dairy Co., Ltd., and all of the major shareholders of the five companies are overseas.

(Editor: Yu Haixia Reviewer: Li Lin Proofreader: Liu Jun)