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1. Lao Yu paid money to help Dong Yuhui become the boss

The ups and downs of business have always touched people's hearts. Not to mention the two celebrities who are now popular, Yu Minhong, who made a comeback by selling goods through live streaming, and Dong Yuhui, who became popular by selling goods with knowledge. On July 25, Dongfangxuan, a company founded by Yu Minhong, issued an announcement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that Dong Yuhui has decided to no longer serve as an employee of the company and a senior management of a merged affiliated entity of the company. This announcement took effect today.

Simply put, Yu Minhong's right-hand man Dong Yuhui resigned from Dongfang Zhenxuan. Since July 25, he has no relationship with Dongfang Zhenxuan. However, he left with Yuhui Xingxing. On the same day, Dongfang Zhenxuan also issued an equity transaction announcement, which roughly means: Dong Yuhui spent 76.5855 million yuan to buy 100% of the equity of Yuhui Xingxing (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. This means that Yuhui Xingxing has been privatized and Dong Yuhui has become the real boss.

Since then, Yuhuixingxing and Dongfangzhenxuan have completely "cut ties". However, some netizens worriedly said that it would cost more than 70 million yuan to buy the shares of Yuhuixingxing. Does Dong Yuhui have so much money? Soon, Yu Minhong published an open letter on his Douyin account and WeChat public account Lao Yu Xianhua, directly answering some of the netizens' doubts. "Shijie" found that this open letter contained a lot of information.

Yu Minhong affirmed Dong Yuhui's great contribution to Oriental Selection, "If Dong Yuhui hadn't ignited Oriental Selection, there would have been no rapid development of Oriental Selection." He also mentioned that he urged the management to give Dong Yuhui as much support as possible. Out of support for himself, Dong Yuhui stayed in Oriental Selection even after the short composition incident, many companies extended olive branches to him.

Yu Minhong also mentioned the ins and outs of the establishment of Yuhui Tongxing and the generous treatment given to Dong Yuhui: while enjoying a guaranteed income (cash + equity), he can also get half of the net profit of Yuhui Tongxing. However, the more eye-catching thing is yet to come. Yu Minhong mentioned that as early as around March this year, Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui discussed the development plans of the two companies. Finally, it was decided that after May 31, he asked the board of directors to agree to transfer 100% of the shares of Yuhui Tongxing to Dong Yuhui himself.

When netizens were speculating on the meaning of the sentence "Dong Yuhui holds the equity purchase funds needed by Hui Tongxing, and I have arranged the payment in a manner consistent with the rules of listed companies and the company's articles of association," Yu Minhong himself revealed the answer.

▲ (Photo source/Yu Minhong’s TikTok account)

He left a message in the comment section of Lao Yu Xian Hua and Douyin respectively: What this means is that I arranged the money for Yu Hui to buy the company, and the company was given to Yu Hui. But netizens still did not give up. Dong Yu Hui made huge profits in two years, and finally gave him a shell company to get rid of? Among all the top anchors, Dong Yu Hui is the poorest one. It must be said that the old ones are still the best.

Perhaps the netizens' criticism was too intense. Not long after, Yu Minhong replied to a message in the comment section, saying that all the income, including all profits, obtained by Yuhui Tongxing since its establishment, was not taken by Oriental Selection, and all were left to Dong Yuhui and Yuhui Tongxing.

Almost at the same time, Dong Yuhui also published an open letter on his Douyin account. He recounted every live broadcast since the establishment of Huixingxing, and first thanked "many consumer friends who have never met." Of course, he also thanked Yu Minhong, Sun Dongxu and Dongfangxuan. Dong Yuhui also said that without New Oriental and Dongfangxuan platform, he would not be where he is today.

He also pointed out one point in particular, "After the establishment of Yuhuixingxing, I and the entire Yuhuixingxing team have received very good treatment and improvement, and Mr. Yu has also given us bonuses that exceeded our expectations many times." In addition, Dong Yuhui specifically left a message in the comment section of Yu Minhong's Douyin account, saying, "The equity purchase funds were also fully supported by Mr. Yu in accordance with the rules of listed companies. In addition, Mr. Yu also supported our operating system for free."

With the amount of information coming one after another, news related to Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Zhenxuan has been on several hot search lists, and netizens are also boiling in the comment area. Regarding Dong Yuhui's complete solo career, some netizens excitedly left a message saying that this is simply the fastest case of a "commoner" counterattack, a victory for workers! Regarding Yu Minhong, some netizens commented that the power of public opinion made Lao Yu use this tragic way to prove his innocence.

▲ (Photo source/Oriental Selection Announcement)

The "tragic" method mentioned by netizens means that Yu Minhong has given the greatest sincerity, such as giving Dong Yuhui and Huixingxing all the net profits. "Shijie" saw from the announcement released by Dongfang Zhenxuan that from December 22, 2023 to June 30, 2024, the unaudited net profit of Huixingxing was 141 million yuan.

Everything that has happened between the two of them today was as expected.

2. It was already destined to happen at this point.

One thing that cannot be denied is that Dong Yuhui is a benefactor to Yu Minhong, and Yu Minhong is a benefactor to Dong Yuhui.

As Dong Yuhui mentioned in his open letter, his first job was at New Oriental, which was founded by Yu Minhong. Dong Yuhui has been working at New Oriental since his internship in 2015, when he was a senior in college. After graduating from college, he became a high school English teacher at New Oriental.

It can be said that with his own talents and the insight of New Oriental, Dong Yuhui became the youngest English teaching and research group leader in history at the age of 23. Regardless of whether the outside world admits it or not, after New Oriental Online transformed into live streaming, Dong Yuhui took the position of anchor and seller. There are two indispensable factors: one is still Dong Yuhui's talent, and the other is still the opportunity given by the management.

It was also through the display of the Oriental Selection platform that Dong Yuhui's talent was seen by all the "mothers-in-law" two years ago. For Yu Minhong, the situation of Oriental Selection before Dong Yuhui became popular was indeed not optimistic. On December 28, 2021, Oriental Selection tried online live broadcast for the first time, and started a strategic transformation amid the sarcasm of "If you just jump from one industry to make quick money to another industry to make quick money, it may not be the best example."

A new anchor with zero fans, Dongfang Zhenxuan’s online users often drop to single digits. Anchor YOYO also joked that sometimes the number of online users is only 1, and it is his own mobile phone. “My parents miss me, so they come to the live broadcast room and ask me if I have eaten.”

In the first two months, the total sales of 26 live broadcasts of Oriental Selection were only 4.5476 million yuan, which was not even as good as Yu Minhong’s first broadcast performance. Even from March and April, the sales of Oriental Selection’s live broadcast room began to stabilize at hundreds of thousands of yuan, but by the end of May, the GMV of a single live broadcast only exceeded 1 million yuan.

It was not until Dong Yuhui’s knowledge-based marketing became popular that Oriental Selection welcomed its own “traffic dividend”. Everyone knows what happened later. Whether it was the number of fans, sales, or stock price, Oriental Selection took off in all aspects. This made Oriental Selection and Yu Minhong overjoyed. After all, at that moment, keeping Oriental Selection alive was Yu Minhong’s top priority.

However, after having enough food and clothing, contradictions also surfaced. When Dong Yuhui's personal IP is too strong, things are not easy to deal with. After all, Dong Yuhui also has his own ambitions. On the other hand, Yu Minhong's initial positioning of Oriental Selection was not anchor-centered, but product-driven. For example, in January 2021, before Dong Yuhui made Oriental Selection popular, Yu Minhong began to explore self-operated businesses and set up relevant product teams.

An industry insider told Shijie that the sudden outbreak of the "Little Composition" incident was just a way to expose the contradictions. Although Yu Minhong mentioned in his open letter that the "Little Composition" incident caught people off guard, the aforementioned industry insider told Shijie that, referring to the tradition of famous teachers leaving New Oriental, Yu knew better than anyone the "undercurrents" within the company.

In order to de-Dong Yuhui-ize himself and appease the "mothers-in-law", Yu Minhong and Dongfang Zhenxuan opened a company for Dong Yuhui called Youhui Xingxing. Dong Yuhui lived up to expectations and did a great job with Youhui Xingxing. In just half a year, he earned 141 million yuan. Things look good at this point.

But in the final analysis, Yuhuixingxing is still a subsidiary of Dongfangxuan. Once there is any disturbance in Yuhuixingxing and Dongfangxuan, it will cause a huge wave. Yu Minhong said in an open letter that as a company based on the Internet, the power of public opinion often affects the development of the company. At the same time, "I myself am deeply trapped in the tide of public opinion, constantly attacked and stigmatized, and Yuhui has also suffered a lot of unwarranted accusations and harm, and this situation has continued to this day."

More importantly, "In this kind of public opinion environment, as a listed company, the share price of Oriental Selection will be subject to drastic fluctuations every time, and the company's credibility and reputation will drop sharply." Yu Minhong's words are not nonsense. "Shijie" found that since the broadcast of "Walking with Glory", in the past seven months, the share price of Oriental Selection has fallen by 56.72%, and the market value has evaporated by HK$16.754 billion. On July 25, it closed at HK$12.4 per share, with a total market value of HK$12.788 billion. Shareholders and investors are most sensitive to the fluctuation of stock prices and the evaporation of market value.

Dong Yuhui is also grateful to Dongfang Selection and Yu Minhong. After the "Little Composition Incident", even if many netizens advised him to leave and find another way to make a living, even if many companies offered olive branches, he still chose to stay in Dongfang Selection. But at the same time, he also has a compassionate heart, so much so that he said "low grain prices hurt farmers" and decided not to charge suppliers for slot fees.

Under the collision of ideals and reality, things have come to this point today. Dong Yuhui's resignation and Yu Minhong's letting go are inevitable.

3. After the severance, where will the two parties go?

In any case, the separation of Dong Yuhui and Yu Minhong, on the surface, has resolved the public opinion dispute, and both sides have suffered almost no losses. Wang Feng, who has been following this matter, also told "Shijie" that, at least, from the current point of view, for Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui, this is a soft landing, and embracing the separation is a win-win situation.

What is a win-win situation? "Yu Minhong no longer has to worry about being scolded by netizens." A netizen joked. This seems to be a joke, but for Yu Minhong, he has always felt wronged. You know, Yu Minhong is called a "stingy person" by netizens. The title originally came from Luo Yonghao, a former famous teacher who left New Oriental and spoke up for Dong Yuhui.

Now, in this soft landing, Yu Minhong has shown the greatest sincerity, and the direction of public opinion has quietly changed. Some netizens have started the topic of "Is Yu Minhong a good boss in China?" "I think Lao Yu has done his best. Dong Yuhui is his employee after all. Dong Yuhui's success today is also the result of his investment of resources." A netizen told "Shijie". In any other company, how can employees enjoy such high benefits, treatment and status?

In Wang Feng's opinion, Dong Yuhui is a capable person. He made Dongfang Zhenxuan popular by himself. In just half a year, he made Youhui Xingxing fly. Everything today is what Dong Yuhui deserves. Some people's companies poured resources into it, but they still couldn't fly to the sky. You know, Dongfang Zhenxuan first promoted another anchor, YOYO.

Netizens were discussing the event enthusiastically, and the live broadcast room of Youhuixingxing was like celebrating the Chinese New Year. A large number of fans poured into the live broadcast room, and the words "Congratulations" filled the entire screen. From 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., in just half an hour, the number of online fans increased from 30,000 to 60,000. "Shijie" found that even at 11:30 p.m., there were still 50,000 people online on Youhuixingxing, and the congratulatory comments on the screen continued.

The anchors of Youhuixingxing may have known that Dong Yuhui has become the boss of Youhuixingxing. Shijie found that as early as mid-July, the anchor of Youhuixingxing, Panpan, changed his Douyin signature to "our unit @Youhuixingxing" and "our boss @Dong Yuhui", and then changed it to "work unit @Youhuixingxing".

Compared to the excitement of netizens and Yuhui's fellow anchors, the Oriental Selection was a little quiet. On July 25, the number of viewers in the Oriental live broadcast room remained at 10,000-20,000 from 19:00 to 23:00. Although some people joked in the comment area that "Oriental Selection has not closed down yet", many netizens also said in the comment area that "Teacher Yu is righteous" and "big picture".

In any case, after Dong Yuhui resigned from Dongfang Selection, his focus was of course on traveling with Hui. Where will Dong Yuhui go in the future? Regarding this, Dong Yuhui also mentioned in his open letter, "Love life, read thousands of books, read mountains and rivers, eat healthy food, read a lot of books, understand a little bit of truth, and live a good life in this short life."

Judging from these words, Yuhuixingxing will continue its previous product line in the future, at least for now. Since its establishment in December 2023, Yuhuixingxing Live Room has incubated three columns: Love Life, Read Mountains and Rivers, and Break Ten Thousand Volumes. Love Life is responsible for daily live broadcasts; Read Mountains and Rivers is responsible for outdoor cultural and tourism live broadcasts; Break Ten Thousand Volumes is a special reading session, responsible for guest interviews.

The achievements in these three columns are not bad. Taking Yueshanhe as an example, Yuhuixingxing has successively carried out cultural tourism live broadcasts for many cities such as Hubei, Henan, Hainan, and Shanxi. In April this year, Yuhuixingxing's live broadcast room also welcomed the sponsor Polar Fox Automobile. But this does not mean that Dong Yuhui's road ahead will be smooth and worry-free.

In the view of many industry insiders, whether Yuhui Xingxing can do a good job in supply chain in the long run is still a question mark. After all, the supply chain involves quality control, logistics, after-sales, etc. Yuhui Xingxing previously shared a supply chain system with Dongfang Zhenxuan. In the future, how Dong Yuhui will face the complex business market independently is also a realistic and cruel test.

For Yu Minhong, the focus of his and Oriental Selection in the future is still on "self-operated products". This can also be proved from the open letter on July 25, "Oriental Selection's self-operated products have become a phenomenal product. Selecting good products for the Chinese people is our unchanging purpose. I believe that our self-operated product system and membership system will definitely get better and better." In response to the sluggish stock price of Oriental Selection, Yu Minhong also mentioned the next countermeasures. The company will continue to increase shareholder value through stock repurchases and other means.

However, the primary issue that Yu Minhong had to face was how to maximize the characteristics and competitiveness of Oriental Selection to attract and retain more fans and save the sluggish performance. After all, after the official announcement of Dong Yuhui's resignation on July 25, Oriental Selection continued to lose fans. In the 15 minutes from 19:33 to 19:48, Oriental Selection lost a thousand fans. And the sales of Oriental Selection have been weak not only in the first three months, but also in recent months.

Today, although Yu Minhong and Dong Yuhui have parted ways and will each face different challenges, this does not mean that they will never meet again. Because at the end of the open letter, Yu Minhong also mentioned, "Yuhui and Yuhui are walking together. If I can be of use to you in the future, I will do my best."

It seems that after showing his sincerity as a "good boss of China", Yu Minhong will continue to be a "former good boss of China".

(The character Wang Feng in the article is a pseudonym)

Author | Tao Ting

Editor | Chen Fang

Operations | Liu Shan