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zong fuli, who resigned and resumed her duties as wahaha ceo a month ago, returns as zong fu niu hulu li.

image source: qichacha

qichacha shows that on august 29, hangzhou wahaha group co., ltd. underwent industrial and commercial changes.zong qinghou resigned as legal representative.zong fuli took over. the shareholder information also changed from zong qinghou holding 29.4% to zong fuli holding 29.4%. in other words, zong fuli successfully inherited zong qinghou's shares.

zong fuli's position also changed from vice chairman and general manager before her resignation totoday’s chairman and general manager.

a month ago, zong fuli's resignation caused a public outcry, bringing wahaha's "palace drama" under the spotlight. now, in just one month, zong fuli has gone from voluntarily resigning to taking over the company. can this "palace drama" finally come to an end?

one month after zong fuli's return, the board of directors was reshuffled

the result of zong fuli's "forced abdication drama" was revealed a month later.

on july 18, a "letter to all employees of wahaha group" was circulated online, signed by zong fuli. the content of the picture circulated online showed: "because the shareholders of wahaha group questioned the rationality of management, it has become difficult to advance management. zong fuli decided to resign from the position of vice chairman and general manager of wahaha group from july 15 and no longer participate in business management."

at that time, wahaha headquarters and local offices both stated that they had not received the relevant documents and their authenticity was yet to be verified.

however, the largest shareholder of wahaha, hangzhou shangcheng district cultural, commercial and tourism investment holding group, said that "the relevant situation is still under further verification." according to china business news, people close to wahaha revealed that some time ago,several wahaha executives have left the company, but they refused to disclose more information. a former wahaha executive said the incident was true.

the paper also reported that a wahaha distributor in shandong revealed that they had contacted the headquarters in the morning regarding the rumors. at present, there are indeed some conflicts and disagreements within the wahaha senior management, but they are being resolved. "isn't it normal to have conflicts within the family? it's just that it's now public on the internet."

at that time, zong qinghou still held a 29.4% stake in wahaha. although zong fuli took over several companies under her father's name after her father's death, she did not take over wahaha shares.

on july 18, zong fuli announced her resignation.zong qinghou's younger brother zong zehouin the circle of friends, he said publicly: "it's a good thing."

zong zehou believes thatin essence, the state is the majority shareholder of wahaha. "if all the shares are yours, of course you can do whatever you want. in a state-owned enterprise, you are just a professional manager."

public information shows that zong zehou is the fourth among zong qinghou's five siblings and is the actual controller of guizhou wamao liquor group.

however, zong fuli finally received the support of shareholders and continued to perform her duties. seven days after her resignation, on july 22, wahaha’s official website issued a statement saying,ms. zong fuli decided to continue to perform relevant management responsibilities of wahaha group.

zhu danpeng, a chinese food industry analyst, believes that the decision of the major shareholder is very scientific, reasonable and wise. "the largest shareholder, the state-owned assets, has the final say and recognized zong fuli. with this key node, the final decision was made." for the benefit of all parties and for the sustainable development of wahaha, the major shareholder re-established zong fuli, who has a good background. this is beneficial to the future stability and market operation of wahaha. although the challenges facing zong fuli are also very great, they can wait for time to solve them.with the strong support of the major shareholder, zong fuli feels greatly supported and confident.

with the support of the largest shareholder, one month after her return, zong fuli successfully inherited the equity and became the chairman and general manager. in addition, wahaha's board of directors also completed a "major reshuffle."

qichacha shows that on august 29, zong fuli was changed to the chairman of wahaha. on the same day, the original board members of wahahafour directors, zhang hui, wu jianlin, pan jiajie and yu qiangbing, and three supervisors, jia tun, guo hong and jiang lijie, withdrew.

image source: qichacha

among them, zhang hui, who withdrew, was a director of hangzhou shangcheng district cultural, commercial and tourism investment holding group co., ltd. and the legal representative of hangzhou shangcheng investment management co., ltd. he was the investor representative of the major shareholder shangcheng capital.

wu jianlin, pan jiajie and yu qiangbing are all veteran employees of wahaha.wu jianlin was one of the first batch of college students of wahaha, the third party secretary and executive vice general manager of wahaha group, and a capable assistant to zong qinghou during his lifetime.

pan jiajie has worked at wahaha for 30 years, starting from the bottom of the supply department and serving as the head of operations; yu qiangbing is the technical head who was promoted from the northwest region.

after the above seven people withdrew, ye yaqiong, hong chanchan, fei junwei and wang guoxiang were added as directors, and wang guoxiang also served as deputy general manager. kong qinming, yin xuqiong and xu simin were appointed as supervisors, and kong qinming was appointed as the chairman of the board of supervisors.

qichacha shows thatthe seven new appointees all have simple business resumes and have only worked for one company, wahaha group.

successionafter wahaha

what changes did zong fuli make?

after zong qinghou's death, zong fuli was sad, but more importantly, she led the wahaha group to continue to develop steadily.zong fuli is the vice chairman and general manager of wahaha and the president of hongsheng beverage group.inheriting and developing the family business left by her father is both zong fuli's responsibility and challenge.

yema finance found that zong fuli has taken over several companies under her father's name. a week ago, she just took over lhasa wahaha food and beverage marketing co., ltd. as the legal representative, director, and manager. according to qichacha information, zong fuli has taken over hangzhou wahaha e-commerce co., ltd., zhejiang qili investment co., ltd., hangzhou hongsheng marketing co., ltd., etc. since this year.legal representative of more than 20 companies, and then resigned from the positions of legal representative of guiyang wahaha changsheng beverage co., ltd. and guiyang wahaha food co., ltd.

tianyancha app shows that zong fuli has more than 170 affiliated companies, of which more than 160 are in existence, including hangzhou wahaha qili food group co., ltd., guangzhou hengfeng beverage co., ltd., hangzhou wahaha e-commerce co., ltd., etc., all of which are subsidiaries or upstream and downstream companies of the wahaha group, covering various fields such as beverages, food, e-commerce, logistics, packaging, marketing, advertising, and investment. zong fuli often serves as chairman, director, manager and other positions.

after the "dawa dispute", wahaha group is currently relatively stable in terms of equity relations and corporate revenue. this is undoubtedly the biggest guarantee that zong qinghou left for zong fuli, but wahaha also faces strong competitive pressure from the market.

the competition between the two beverage giants, wahaha and nongfu spring, in the chinese market has always been a hot topic.

in the past six months, zhong shanshan, the founder of nongfu spring, has been in trouble due to a series of public opinion controversies.because of the past between the founders, there was a nationwide debate about the two major drinking water brands.various voices came one after another. nongfu spring subsequently released 20 responses to the rumors at once, and has reported the case and filed a lawsuit against them. this public opinion war was seen by the outside world as a sign of the fierce competition between nongfu spring and wahaha.

zong fuli's first step after taking over wasfocus on offline channels, but competitors,relying on years of operation, nongfu spring has greater brand influence in drinking water products, tea medical products, fruit juice drinks, etc.

in the drinking water market, the competition between the two is particularly obvious.the richest man zhong shanshan took the initiative to attack.nongfu spring purified water was launched in green bottles.

robust, a time-honored brand that has entered the ad calcium milk field directly into wahaha's base camp, has also officially "revive" its ad calcium milk products.it will also have an impact on the market share of wahaha ad calcium milk.

moreover, c'estbon's parent company, china resources beverage, is also impacting the hong kong stock exchange...

for zong fuli, the wahaha group, which has a 37-year development history, is currently in a somewhat difficult situation, facing internal and external difficulties, and is also facing two major strategic issues: innovation and management.

this year, wahaha has been making frequent moves to promote its marketing. in the cctv spring festival gala in the year of the dragon, wahaha quickly became popular with the "ad calcium milk sister" behind liu qian. later, it appeared as a sponsor on the night of the lantern festival. the news that zong fuli distributed 600 million yuan in red envelopes to employees on february 2, the day of the little new year, also attracted attention.....

image source: wahaha official weibo

zong fuli once admitted in an interview with other media that the food and beverage market where wahaha is located is a market with ever-changing consumer demand. in terms of innovative products, "health" and "delicious" are the mainstream underlying logic of the beverage industry. bold and thorough innovations at the "health" level will resonate with the values ​​of the new generation of consumer groups.

currently, wahaha has six major food businesses, including water series, porridge series, tea drinks, milk tea drinks, milk drinks, and carbonated drinks.among them, wahaha ad calcium milk, nutri-express, longan and lotus seed eight treasure porridge, and wahaha pure water are well-known national brands, while longjing green tea, c-drive lemon juice carbonated drinks, brown sugar milk tea, crystal water and many other new brands are innovative brands in recent years.

image source: canned image library

zong fuli also said that the company is focusing on the research and development and application of new technologies and processes in beverage manufacturing, and promoting new management changes. among them, wahaha group has initially achieved the transformation and upgrading from automation to intelligence, and the "hongsheng super chain intelligent manufacturing" hangzhou base built by hongsheng beverage group has been put into production in 2022.

however, the market that zong fuli faces is completely different from that when zong qinghou started his business. today, the food and beverage industry is "flourishing", and the product competitiveness of large beverage companies is also improving.

for the wahaha group, national brands such as wahaha ad calcium milk, wahaha longan and lotus seed eight-treasure porridge and purified water still have certain competitiveness, but the influence of new products needs to be improved. these problems still require zong fuli to come up with more market-impressive methods to break through.

but,since zong fuli entered the management team, she has been committed to creating ip for younger generations and has started drastic reforms and innovations.

in 2016, zong fuli founded the beverage brand kellyone. it was not until she took over that it began to appear in offline supermarkets in large quantities. according to china entrepreneur magazine, around march, wahaha gradually introduced more new products such as iced black tea and sugar-free tea to terminal stores.

at the wahaha group's 2024 national sales work conference held at the end of last year,zong fuli pointed out that new sales channels must be truly opened up in 2024.

in 2024, wahaha proposed the slogan "in 2024, it was officially diagnosed as "wahaha constitution"" and launched a variety of new beverages, including 4 kinds of wahaha sugar-free pure tea, coconut milk drinks, milk drinks and related juice medical products, but the market response remains to be seen.

it can be seen that the "second-generation helmsman" zong lifu has great ambitions and is confident and determined to lead wahaha forward. however, the news of her voluntary resignation and shareholders' dissatisfaction inevitably triggered many speculations in the market.

among the many rumors about wahaha, the most important one is a letter of complaint from a person claiming to be a former wahaha employee, reporting to the relevant authorities that zong fuli, president of hongsheng group, had embezzled huge amounts of state-owned assets of the wahaha group.

the letter stated that hongsheng group, founded in 2003 and headquartered in hangzhou, china, was a sino-foreign joint venture 100% controlled by zong fuli. it had been a contract manufacturer for wahaha group before zong qinghou's death. after zong qinghou's death, zong fuli transferred the interests of wahaha group, which originally belonged to the state-owned shares, to hongsheng group by means of transferring orders, profits and even assets, which was suspected of embezzling state-owned assets.

hengfeng trading co., ltd. is the major shareholder of hongsheng group, holding 98% of the shares and is registered in the british virgin islands.after returning to china in 2004 after completing her studies in international business, zong fuli started working at wahaha as a front-line producer.in 2007, zong fuli began to take charge of hongsheng group。

at present, there is no public information to determine the authenticity of the contents of this report letter.

however, hongsheng group is indeed one of wahaha's off-balance sheet companies. wahaha's off-balance sheet companies were born after 2000 and were also the product of the joint venture with danone. according to china business news, zong qinghou once said in his autobiography that due to the rapid growth of wahaha's size, it needed to increase investment and expand production capacity, but was rejected or delayed by danone's board of directors. therefore, a series of off-balance sheet companies were established outside the joint venture to meet the production and processing needs.

shen meng believes thatwahaha is relatively controlled by state-owned assets, so there are questions about interest transfer and state-owned asset risks surrounding wahaha's registration of a private entity to carry out peripheral businesses.

it is worth noting that in december 2022, shenyang wahaha rongtai food co., ltd. added two new directors, zong jieli and zong jichang. according to qichacha, from june to july this year, zong jichang took office as a director of four companies in the wahaha system, namely nanjing wahaha beverage co., ltd., tianjin wahaha food co., ltd., dali wahaha beverage co., ltd., and shuangcheng wahaha dairy co., ltd. the change of two people with the surname zong to join the wahaha system company also caused speculation from the outside world.

build 50 billion wahaha

zong qinghou's "commercial aircraft carrier group"

zong qinghou, the "soul figure" of wahaha, has personally won many social honors. in terms of personal wealth, he once topped the forbes china rich list in 2012 with a net worth of us$10 billion. in 2015, he ranked 18th on the forbes chinese rich list with us$10.3 billion.on march 23, 2023, zong qinghou ranked 121st on the "2023 hurun global rich list" with a wealth of 100 billion yuan.

the wahaha group, which he built,from 2021 to 2023, total revenue will remain above 50 billion yuan for three consecutive years.it has 81 production bases and 187 subsidiaries in 29 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country, with nearly 30,000 employees. the company's scale and efficiency have been in the leading position in the industry for 20 consecutive years, ranking among the top 500 chinese enterprises, the top 500 chinese manufacturing enterprises, and the top 500 chinese private enterprises.

due to his huge personal wealth, the inheritance of equity under zong qinghou's name has attracted much attention in the industry.

currently, the major shareholder of wahaha group is hangzhou shangcheng district cultural, commercial and tourism investment holding group co., ltd., which holds 46% of the shares of wahaha group. zong qinghou holds 29.4% of the shares, and the hangzhou wahaha group co., ltd. grassroots trade union joint committee (employee stock ownership association) holds the remaining 24.6% of the shares.

according to tianyancha data,zong qinghou holds shares in 14 companies. in addition to wahaha group, he also holds 60% of the shares of zhejiang qili investment co., ltd., 60% of the shares of hangzhou xiaoshan hongsheng food co., ltd., 60% of the shares of zhejiang zhenzong investment co., ltd., 100% of the shares of hangzhou wahaha hongzhen investment co., ltd., etc.

image source: tianyancha

also,zong qinghou's family business is not limited to the wahaha group. in addition to the wahaha group, there are also hongsheng beverage group, hangzhou zongcheng group, zhejiang zhenzong group, hangzhou sanhe food group, etc., which are respectively controlled by zong qinghou's daughter zong fuli, zong qinghou's younger brother zong zehou, zong qinghou himself, and zong qinghou's younger brother zong duanhou.

according to article 75 of the company law of the people's republic of china, after the death of a natural person shareholder, his legal heirs may inherit the shareholder status; however, this shall not apply if the company's articles of association provide otherwise.

in addition to his personal wealth, zong qinghou has also made many suggestions for people's livelihood during his tenure as a national people's congress representative. he has suggested exempting the working class from personal income tax to offset the increase in living costs; he also proposed to guarantee young people an affordable housing unit per family to meet basic needs.

these suggestions of zong qinghou have been recognized by many people, and he is known as an entrepreneur who "speaks for the people."

zong qinghou's two "crises"

zong qinghou encountered several "crises" during his lifetime, the more well-known ones being the "dawa dispute", robbery, and the "green card gate". fortunately, he was able to overcome them all in the end.

the most worrying incident was the attack in 2013.

the results of the case investigation released by the public security department of hangzhou, zhejiang province showed that in september of that year, 49-year-old yang had difficulty finding a job. after seeing an interview on tv about zong qinghou helping migrant workers, he went to zong qinghou's residence near his residence hoping to arrange a job for him.

however, yang ultimately failed to achieve his goal, so he threatened to kill zong qinghou with a knife, resulting in the tendons of four fingers on zong qinghou's left hand being cut off.

if the attack was a sudden accident, then the "dawa dispute" was a long-lasting battle for national brands.

as early as 1996, france's danone and wahaha established a joint venture, in which danone's highest share ratio was 51%. the two parties signed a "trademark transfer agreement" and a "trademark license agreement" to grant the joint venture the right to use the wahaha trademark, and danone invested us$45 million and rmb 50 million in trademark transfer fees.

image source: wahaha official weibo

the cooperation with wahaha is one of danone's strategic steps to expand the global food market. from 2000 to 2006, danone also acquired the equity of several domestic food companies such as robust, meilin zhengguang, guangming, and huiyuan. these companies invested by danone are in the same industry as wahaha, which will undoubtedly form a competitive relationship with wahaha, thus restricting wahaha's development to a certain extent.

in this context, wahaha's non-joint venture business was very important to zong qinghou. in 2006, the business scale and lucrative profits of wahaha's non-joint venture business attracted danone's attention, and it proposed to acquire 51% of wahaha's non-joint venture equity for 4 billion yuan, but was rejected by zong qinghou.

as a result, danone began a protracted lawsuit against wahaha at home and abroad on the grounds of trademark disputes, which also involved the debate over whether zong qinghou and his family should obtain american citizenship, but was eventually clarified by zong qinghou.

the "dano-wahaha dispute" began in 2006 and lasted for three years until a settlement was announced in 2009. in the end, wahaha acquired danone's 51% stake in the joint venture for 3 billion yuan, preserving the national brand of wahaha.

some outside commentators believe that the "dawa dispute" has made wahaha wary of introducing foreign investment or listing for financing, so wahaha has not yet gone public.

zong qinghou said in an interview with the beijing news that these statements were not accurate, and that the cooperation between wahaha and danone had both pleasant and contradictory aspects.in the early stages of cooperation with foreign capital, domestic enterprises were indeed unable to achieve equality with foreign capital.wahaha does not rule out future cooperation with foreign capital.however, cooperation must be based on the premise of complementary advantages, balanced and mutually beneficial cooperation, and promoting the progress of enterprises and countries.

although zong qinghou has passed away, the "wahaha" brand he created has grown into a well-known national brand in the food and beverage industry. under the leadership of zong fuli, how will the national brand be revitalized? let us wait and see.