Lu Zhengyao'S "Business Empire" Is In Trouble.

Lu Zhengyao, the first Chinese car rental company built by himself, is moving away from him.

On the morning of June 10th, Shenzhou renting announced that Lu Zhengyao, chairman of the board of directors of the company, had formally resigned as chairman and non-executive director of the company in order to devote more time to Shenzhou excellent cars and other duties. In June 1st, Shenzhou car rental has announced that the company's shareholders Shenzhou excellent car has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Beiqi group, which will not buy more than 21.26% of the Shenzhou car held by the former.

If the cooperation agreement is finally reached, then the Shenzhou superior vehicle, which Lu Zhengyao is currently in, will sell all its holdings to Beiqi group to complete the withdrawal from the equity level, and Beiqi group will replace the Shenzhou superior vehicle. However, the transaction is still likely to fall.

Lu Zhengyao, who has always regarded himself as a very high figure, was in a dilemma after he was exposed to fraud. In order to save Rui Xing coffee, he apologized frequently to the outside world. On the other hand, he raised money in various ways, and at the expense of renting Shenzhou car to the shelves, finally met with Beiqi group to save his tight cash flow after he ran out of trade with Hua Ping.

Can Lu Zhengyao get out of the car in Shenzhou to get rid of this dilemma?

Choice in dilemma

In April 2nd, Rui Xing coffee announced that it had forged a transaction volume of 2 billion 200 million yuan in the two quarter to fourth quarter of 2019, and the related costs and expenses also increased accordingly.

In this announcement, fraud was identified as the personal act of chief operating officer Liu Jian, and some temporary remedies were taken, including suspending Liu Jian and suspected employees of such misconduct. "Counterfeit behavior like Rui Xing coffee is a systematic and whole process of fraud, so it is unlikely that it is individual behavior of some executives." A person familiar with the securities laws of the United States told reporters.

He told reporters that qualified shareholders and investors would be very likely to bring a civil class action against a company's directors and executives to fraud on fraud.

After being exposed to fraud, Lu Zheng Yao first sent his staff in the circle of friends to be "full of energy". But under pressure, he finally apologized in his friend's circle at the end of third days. He said, "I am very self reproach. No matter what the final findings of the independent commission are, I will take the responsibility. "

"Over the past two years, the company has been running too fast, causing a lot of problems, and now it has fallen fiercely. As chairman, I am to blame. I sincerely apologize to everyone in my circle of friends - I'm sorry! He said.

However, his career did not change because of apology. The price of Rui Xing coffee dropped by nearly 80%, which also led to the collapse of Lu Zhengyao's Shenzhou car rental price by nearly 50% on the second day. At the end of May, the market regulator entered Rui Xing coffee and began to investigate its counterfeiting behavior. Up to now, officials have not released the findings.

The fatal blow came from the United States. Rui Xing coffee announced that it had received the delisting notice of the NASDAQ Exchange in May 15th. The company plans to hold a hearing. According to the relevant laws, the hearings are usually arranged 30 to 45 days after the hearing request date, that is, at the latest before June 30th, there will be a preliminary result of the delisting of Rui Xing coffee.

In May 20th, Lu Zheng Yao issued the document again late at night. He first questioned the decision of the NASDAQ. He said he had dealt with the responsible persons, reorganized the board of directors, updated the management level, and actively carried out rectification on the basis of the results of the phased investigation. However, the final investigation results of the NASDAQ did not require the company to withdraw from the market.

Subsequently, the impact of Rui Xing coffee incident was once again apologized to the vast number of investors, all lucky employees and customers. Lu Zhengyao said that he has always been in the front line of industry, his style may be too radical, and the enterprises run too fast, which also leads to many problems. But he is not deceiving investors with the concept of "doing the bureau". He really wants to make the enterprise bigger and better.

For the future of Rui Xing coffee, Lu Zheng Yao said he believed that Rui Xing coffee's business model and business logic were established. At the same time, he said he would try his best to maintain the operation of the store, and try his best to restore the loss of shareholders so that the lucky brand could go on.

During the period from the time of the fraud to the delisting notice, Lu Zheng Yao also tried to save the company.

In May 6th, Lu Zheng Yao's company formally sued Credit Suisse, demanding that the latter pay compensation for alleged breach of a speeding up $532 million loan arrangement. In May 13th, Rui Xing adjusted its board of directors and management, CEO Qian Zhi Ya and COO Liu Jian were terminated by the board of directors, and appointed Guo Jinyi as deputy CEO, and elected non Shenzhou Cao Wenbao and Wu Gang as directors of the company.

And in all its self rescue methods, selling the Shenzhou renting car is the most direct one. In the early days of Rui Xing's counterfeiting, Shenzhou renting a car connected with Ctrip and Geely, but they were all rumored. In April 9th, Shenzhou excellent car sold 2.11% of Shenzhou renting shares to the open market to meet the lender's request for repayment of the loan.

In April 16th, Shenzhou car rental announcement said that Shenzhou excellent car will transfer shares to Amber Gem Holdings (USA Huaping holding). The announcement revealed that Shenzhou excellent car and Amber Gem respectively held 25.92% and 10.11%, and the first 4.65% of the shares were transferred on the same day. After that, the shares held by Shenzhou excellent car dropped to 21.26%.

Finally, at the end of May, Lu Zhengyao waited until Beiqi group was able to transfer all his shares to the latter, so that he could get rid of his car completely in Shenzhou, but he still faced many difficulties in the future of Rui Xing coffee.

The path dependence of burning money

Choose a market with huge growth space, expand rapidly and get scale effect, and burn subsidies to attract users. Lu Zheng Yao's choice is very familiar with Lu Zheng Yao, which can be traced back to the birth of Shenzhou rentals.

Back in 2007, Lu Zheng Yao's first large listed company, Shenzhou renting, was founded. There were two relatively large players in the market: super car rental and hi car rental. In December of that year, there were only more than 300 cars in Shenzhou renting, which operated in 11 cities nationwide. By June 2008, it had expanded rapidly to 1000 vehicles and operated in 20 cities nationwide. The scale has already exceeded second.

As a result, Shenzhou car rental competitors on scale, leaving only the most expensive car rental. After that, the story of competition between them is very familiar, similar to the 2015 drops and excellent steps, the 2018 ofo and the two companies launched a wave of subsidy war in the years after 2008.

Until the 2013 Hertz investment strategy, Shenzhou car rental merged with Hertz's all rentals business in China, firmly occupied the first place in the market, and successfully achieved listing in 2014. After that, with the reduction of Lu Zhengyao and other institutional investors, the performance of Shenzhou renting began to decline in 2016.

It is worth mentioning that this model is not going all the way. In the pioneering process of Shenzhou department after 2015, there was a failure that Lu Zhengyao had hoped for. This failure also stimulated Lu Zhengyao to change the track and eventually led to the birth of Rui Xing coffee.

In 2016, shortly after the creation of the Shenzhou excellent car, Lu Zheng Yao invested more than 10 billion yuan to build an auto business platform. This vision attracted Alibaba to invest 2 billion 680 million yuan into the Bureau. The two sides said they would carry out all-round strategic cooperation in the field of "Internet + automobile".

In the April press conference, Shenzhou excellent car announced that it would build more than 500 stores and similar stores in the 4S area nationwide before June 2017, covering all parts of the country. At the same time, it is estimated that sales of new and used cars will reach 600 thousand -80 10000 units in 2017.

Burning the money and expanding the same mode enabled Shenzhou car rental to rise rapidly, but failed to succeed in buying a car business. "Shenzhou buying a car is a failure from the result." A person close to Shenzhou excellent car told reporters, "the traditional 4S shop system is too strong, and this mode will not be pushed to half."

After that, the profits of Shenzhou excellent cars were far from being expected, and their share prices continued to fall. Lu Zhengyao is not not looking for the next outlet in the automotive industry chain. In June 2017, he announced 2 billion 200 million yuan injection of Xiaopeng motor vehicle to enter the new energy vehicle manufacturing industry, but the new car from R & D to production is too long, and the industry track is too crowded, so it is difficult to achieve rapid growth in the past path.

In 2018, Shenzhou excellent vehicle COO Qian Zhi Ya officially left office to establish Rui Xing coffee, but her decision was not a personal adventure: this venture not only got Lu Zhengyao's direct investment, but also the original technology, operation and other excellent troops of Shenzhou excellent car joined in the process of Rui Xing Chong.

In 2019, Rui Xing became the first brand of chain coffee in China with more than 4500 stores, and when people almost believed Lu Zhengyao would succeed from success to success, Rui finished his whole journey with a notice. His final result was also stained with fatalism.

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