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Cailianshe News, July 25 (Reporter Xu Cihao, Researcher Liang Youyun, Intern Wang Yunjia)Dong Yuhui still "parted ways" with Oriental Selection.

After the market closed on July 25, Oriental Selection issued an announcement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, announcing that the well-known anchor Dong Yuhui will officially leave on July 25. At the same time, the company also agreed that Dong Yuhui would buy out "Walk with Hui" which was fully controlled by Oriental Selection for 76.5855 million yuan.

It is worth noting that in the latest announcement of the change of ownership of Yuhui Tongxing, from its establishment in December 2023 to June 30, 2024, Yuhui Tongxing recorded a net profit of 141 million yuan.

After the announcement, Yu Minhong revealed in an open letter that Dong Yuhui would personally hold 100% of the shares of Yihui Tongxing after it was officially separated from Dongfang Zhenxuan. In addition to paying all the promised benefits, Yu Minhong also pleaded with the board of directors and the remuneration committee and obtained their consent to award all the net profits of Yihui Tongxing to Dong Yuhui.

Obviously, compared with the previous disputes between anchors such as Li Ziqi and Cheng Shian and MCN agencies, Dong Yuhui, Yu Minhong and Dongfang Zhenxuan have already "parted happily". But after losing the anchor pillar and Yuhui Xingxing, where will Dongfang Zhenxuan go? After Yuhui Xingxing becomes independent, it will also face more intense industry competition and internal corporate governance issues.

Dong Yuhui and Dongfangxuan parted ways gracefully

After Oriental Selection issued the announcement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui both responded to the matter.

Yu Minhong published an open letter to shareholders of Oriental Selection on his personal WeChat public account. In the open letter, Yu Minhong affirmed that "Dong Yuhui has made a significant contribution to the development of Oriental Selection. If Dong Yuhui had not ignited Oriental Selection, there would be no rapid development of Oriental Selection."

"From today, Dongfang Zhenxuan's wholly-owned subsidiary Yuhui Xingxing will be officially separated from Dongfang Zhenxuan, and Dong Yuhui will personally hold 100% of its shares," Yu Minhong said in an open letter. In order to ensure the normal operation of Yuhui Xingxing's business, Dongfang Zhenxuan, with the approval of the board of directors, will deliver the developed information system to Yuhui Xingxing free of charge."

Dong Yuhui also posted on social media that, considering the current actual situation and development plan, after friendly consultation and unanimous decision by both parties, the company will start to operate independently. "Leaving the protection of the port, starting today, Yuhuixing will sail alone to the vast sea. The future is unpredictable, so we can only go all out."

However, although Yu Minhong gave his blessings to Dong Yuhui and his colleagues, he also pointed out in his statement that the important reasons for the breakup were business conflicts and public opinion disputes.

In fact, although the live broadcast room "Yi Tong Xing Hui" was launched after the Xiao Wen Zuo incident, it failed to reconcile the gap between the two parties.

In February this year, Dong Yuhui temporarily cleared his personal Weibo account. He explained, "I can't solve the misunderstanding, so I can only escape. I didn't cancel my account because once I cancel it, fake accounts will appear. People can still follow me and criticize me, but you can't misunderstand a person from the beginning to the end."

On June 9, Dong Yuhui expressed his boredom and dissatisfaction with his career as an anchor in the talk show "I Love Me, I'm Great". He said that his sleeping conditions were very bad and he had always been resisting the job of live streaming and selling goods in his heart, "I still don't enjoy this job to this day."

At the same time, Dong Yuhui said that because of the live broadcast, his parents have been harassed for a long time. In addition, he is "very disgusted" by others calling him an Internet celebrity. Dong Yuhui admitted on the show, "I am very resistant to selling things. To be honest, I still don't enjoy this job today." Although he feels that his work is meaningful, he does not feel happy. "It may be essentially due to my previous personality and past career."

Today, Yu Minhong also admitted in a statement that the public opinion environment has led to huge uncertainty in the development of both companies, the stock price has fluctuated violently due to external influences, and the company's credibility and reputation have declined sharply.

According to Yu Minhong, he and Dong Yuhui had repeated consultations in March this year, and finally decided that after the end of the fiscal year (May 31), Yu Minhong would ask the board of directors for approval to transfer 100% of the shares of Huixingxing to Dong Yuhui himself.

In this regard, Yu Minhong also said that the site selection, transaction negotiations, and work area decoration of Huitong’s new office space were all completed by New Oriental Asset’s professional team. In order to shorten the construction period, they worked day and night to complete the task on schedule.

It can be seen that Yu Minhong is also actively dealing with the "peaceful breakup" between Oriental Selection and Dong Yuhui and Yuhui Xingxing.

Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, told a reporter from Cailianshe that as a public figure, Dong Yuhui's resignation may affect the public image and brand awareness of Oriental Selection to a certain extent, especially for those consumers who pay attention to and support the company because of Dong Yuhui's personal charm.

"Oriental Selection needs to manage this change through effective public relations strategies to maintain the stability and attractiveness of the brand. In particular, it is necessary to further introduce more competitive anchors to jointly promote the development of Oriental Selection." Jiang Han further said.

In this regard, Shen Meng, director of Xiangsong Capital, told reporters that this formal separation is also the final chapter of the long-standing separation, and both parties have been prepared for this day. Continuing to force the company to stay will not bring greater benefits to the listed company, so it is better to let it go. At the same time, he also believes that as a Hong Kong listed company, no matter how beautiful the words are, it dare not make private transactions and harm the interests of shareholders, otherwise it will be involved in endless legal proceedings, so there is no fire sale in this transaction.

"Can't get rid of the addiction to super head" Oriental Selection once again reached the crossroads of transformation

In essence, the dispute between Oriental Selection and Dong Yuhui is the result of Yu Minhong and other management's attempt to cure the "over-addiction syndrome" of live streaming e-commerce, and the ultimate failure.

Various signs indicate that since 2023, Oriental Selection has begun to consciously "de-Dong Yuhui", reducing the number of Dong Yuhui's live broadcasts, and removing the "Recommended by Yuhui" label on book packaging and Dong Yuhui's image on self-operated steak packaging. In September last year, after Oriental Selection started live broadcasting on Taobao, with the authorization of management, the authorized account used Dong Yuhui's video slices to bring goods, which was regarded by fans as "exploiting the personal commercial value of the anchor."

Last December, due to a short essay incident caused by the editor of the backend operation of Oriental Selection, the rift between Dong Yuhui, a big anchor within Oriental Selection, and the company was gradually magnified. Coupled with the mobile phone smashing incident of Sun Dongxu, "Little Sun of Oriental", Yu Minhong and the company fell into an increasingly serious public opinion crisis.

Under the pressure of fans' "boycott" for nearly a month, the senior management of Oriental Selection represented by Yu Minhong negotiated with Dong Yuhui to establish an independent account. Dong Yuhui will be responsible for the operation of the account and the team, and Oriental Selection will provide full support.

On January 9 this year, a Douyin live broadcast account named "Walking with Hui" was officially launched, and Dong Yuhui also officially took the first step in operating his own independent IP.

According to an article published today on Yu Minhong's personal public account, after the "Small Composition" incident broke out, rumors of Dong Yuhui's resignation were rife. "Although many companies extended olive branches to Yuhui at the time, because of the frank communication and mutual trust between Dong Yuhui and I, Dong Yuhui finally decided to stay in Oriental Selection and work with me."

Industrial and commercial information shows that Yuhui Xingxing (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. was established on December 22, 2024 with a registered capital of 10 million yuan. Dong Yuhui is the legal representative, executive director and manager. However, in terms of the final ownership of equity, Yuhui Xingxing, as a subsidiary of Dongfang Selection, is still the ultimate beneficiary of Yuminhong.

It is worth noting that in the early stages of its development, Yuhui Tongxing did not have a product selection team and was more dependent on Oriental Selection for product selection, but in terms of supply chain, it mainly relied on Douyin's pallets rather than Oriental Selection's own supply chain.

As the live streaming e-commerce platform Yuhui Tongxing gradually got on track, the number of fans of Yuhui Tongxing quickly exceeded 10 million, and Dong Yuhui's personal account exceeded 20 million fans even faster.

The "Oriental Selection Live Room", which has lost Dong Yuhui's support, is also facing difficulties in increasing fans, and even a dilemma of continued decline. As of today, "Yitongxing" has 21.509 million fans, and "Oriental Selection" has 29.868 million fans. Before the "Little Composition" incident, the maximum number of fans of "Oriental Selection" reached 31.16 million.

After the establishment of Yuhui Tongxing, the categories of products it sold were indeed the same as those of Dongfang Zhenxuan, but with Dong Yuhui, Yuhui Tongxing achieved greater performance revenue.

According to Feigua data, in the Douyin live streaming influencer list in May, Yuhuixing ranked second with sales of 533 million yuan, while Dongfangzhenxuan ranked sixth. In the first four months of this year, the sales of Yuhuixing live streaming room were 932 million yuan, 411 million yuan, 620 million yuan, and 538 million yuan respectively. In contrast, the sales of Dongfangzhenxuan live streaming room in the same period were 639 million yuan, 269 million yuan, 329 million yuan, and 242 million yuan respectively, and the gap is gradually widening.

After losing Dong Yuhui, Oriental Selection's stock price has also been "falling" this year. As of today's close, Oriental Selection closed at HK$12.4, up 4.2%, but it has fallen 55.4% this year. In order to stabilize the stock price, after the news of Dong Yuhui's resignation was announced today, Oriental Selection immediately issued an announcement stating that it would repurchase company shares worth no more than 500 million yuan from the open market from time to time during the year.

In fact, with the growth of the live streaming e-commerce track, incidents of bargaining between anchors and platforms have been repeated in recent years. The addiction to top anchors is not just a problem for Dongfang Zhenxuan.

Compared with the globally popular internet celebrity Li Ziqi, Dong Yuhui's breakup with Dongfang Zhenxuan can be described as respectable. Previously, Li Ziqi and the MCN agency Hangzhou Wei Nian Brand Management Co., Ltd. broke up and went to court. Although the two parties reached a settlement after the mediation of the court, after this incident, the IP Li Ziqi has long been not as good as before, and Wei Nian has gradually given up the MCN business and turned to focus on food supply chain businesses such as snail rice noodle and lotus root powder.

At present, the top anchors of several major MCN agencies, including Xinxuan, Three Sheep, Mei One, Qianxun, and Yaowang, are moving behind the scenes, while the company level is working hard to promote the matrix of anchors who sell goods.

In addition, in the past few years, many anchors have fallen due to tax evasion and other reasons. Platforms such as Kuaishou, Douyin, and Taobao Live are also constantly exploring new anchors to try to balance the top anchors and mid-level anchors.

For Oriental Selection, which has lost Dong Yuhui, it has come to a new crossroads: whether to discover the next Dong Yuhui or stick to matrix development.