On Wednesday, Huang Zheng resigned as chairman of Poundland. A few days ago, Xi stressed that he will continue to target “platform companies” that have accumulated a lot of data and market power. Media reports suggest that this is a sign that the Chinese Communist government is preparing to expand its crackdown, which could affect online giants such as Tencent, Drip, Meituan Dianping, Jingdong Mall and Jindo, in addition to Alibaba and its subsidiary Ant Group.
On March 17, Huang Zheng, founder of Poundland, released his 2021 annual letter to shareholders, announcing his resignation from the position of chairman of Poundland and Chen Lei taking over as chairman with immediate effect and continuing to hold the position of CEO.
After resigning from the chairmanship and management position of Poundland, Huang Zheng’s 1:10 super voting rights will also lapse, and the voting rights of his shares will be entrusted to Poundland’s board of directors to make decisions by way of voting. Huang Zheng explicitly promised that the shares in his name will continue to be locked up and not sold in the next 3 years.
Huang Zheng explained his resignation as chairman that the external environment has changed dramatically due to the CCP virus Epidemic and other reasons, which has accelerated the iterative renewal of Poundland’s internal business and management, “it’s Time to gradually let more backwaters up to shape the Poundland that belongs to them”.
Huang Zheng believes that the contribution of Poundland to the field of agriculture in the past few years is still mainly in the field of circulation, the future to ensure the high speed and high quality development of Poundland 10 years later through the control of the process of growing agricultural products and the research in the field of Food science and Life science.
Huang Zheng said that after his resignation, he will focus on the field of food science and life science research, for example, through the control of the farming process methods of agricultural products, to explore the potential harmful heavy metal content of potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, etc. for reliable and effective control, while the possible and beneficial trace elements of them for controlled standardization and enhancement, etc.
The mainland media “Sina Finance” reported that as the founder, Huang Zheng will “touch the stones on the road after 10 years”.
On March 17, Poundland disclosed its fourth quarter earnings data, with revenue of 26.55 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2020, compared to market expectations of 19.216 billion yuan and 10.793 billion yuan in the same period last year. Fourth quarter net loss of 1.36 billion yuan, the market expected a loss of 718 million yuan, compared with a loss of 1.752 billion yuan in the same period last year.
Recently, the Chinese Communist Party has tightened its crackdown on “platform companies”. On Monday (March 15), Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over the ninth meeting of the Central Finance and Economics Commission, stressing that it will continue to target so-called “platform companies” that have accumulated a lot of data and market power.
In this meeting, Xi Jinping directly named “some platform enterprises are not standardized, there are risks, the platform economy is not fully developed, there are shortcomings, the regulatory system does not adapt to the problem is also more prominent”. In the regulation of enterprises to adhere to the “correct political” direction, from the “national strategy” height, “clear rules, delineate the bottom line, strengthen supervision… …oppose monopoly and prevent the disorderly expansion of capital”.
Taiwan‘s Free Finance reports that Xi’s tough and unusual language signals that the Chinese government is prepared to expand its actions to curb the influence of large and powerful private companies. The crackdown from Alibaba and its subsidiary Ant Group will extend to other online giants, including Tencent, Drip, Meituan Dianping, Jingdong Mall, and Jindo, among others.
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