When Xiaomi is about to go public, Lei Jun may be too busy to come? He recently resigned as the chairman of a listed company he held.
On March 13th, Cheetah Mobile (NYSE: CMCM) announced a series of changes to the board of directors, effective immediately. Lei Jun has submitted his resignation to the board of directors, will no longer serve as chairman and director, will serve as company consultant. Cheetah Mobile CEO ( CEO Fu Sheng will succeed Lei Jun as chairman and become the true leader.
At the same time, Wu Yuqiang, Chief Financial Officer of Kingsoft (03888.HK), Liu Wei, Vice President of Kingsoft Software, Ding Wei, Vice President of Mobile Internet Business of Tencent, and Li Zhaohui, Investment Management Partner and General Manager of Tencent (HK: 00700) have resigned as Directors Title.
Cheetah Mobile Board appointed Zhang Ning, founder and chairman of Red Avenue Group, Zhao Tianjun, CEO of Beijing Shougang Fund, and Dr. Ma Yi, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, as independent director, appointed Senior Vice President of the company. CEO Xiao Jie and Zhou Pin and Hao Rui, Assistant General Manager of Tencent Investment & Acquisitions, are the directors.
Cheetah Mobile Board now consists of 11 members, of which 6 are independent directors.
As to whether Lei Jun will continue to retain the stock of Cheetah Mobile, it was not mentioned in the announcement. A person close to Cheetah Mobile told the news that 'this change should not involve the company's equity. The major shareholder is still Jinshan, followed by Tencent.'
Cheetah Mobile's 2017 annual report shows that Lei Jun directly owns Class A shares of Cheetah Mobile 17660294 with a share ratio of 1.2% and a turnout rate of 0.2%. Kingsoft Chairman of the Board of Directors is Lei Jun. Kingsoft Software holds 47.2% shares of Cheetah Mobile. 62.8% of the voting rights.
Behind this change, Kingsoft, the major shareholder of Cheetah, and Tencent, the second-largest shareholder, substantially let go and handed over the management rights to the management team led by CEO Fu Sheng. For this reason, the company has been preparing for at least one month.
On February 13th, Cheetah Mobile announced that its controlling shareholder Kingsoft and Fusheng entered into a voting commission agreement to delegate 37.81% of Cheetah Mobile's voting rights to Fu Sheng. Another shareholder Tencent will separately negotiate with Fu Sheng to agree that it will not More than 47.75 million shares of Cheetah Class B common stock were transferred to Fu Sheng. After completion of the above two grant agreements, Fu Sheng and the team’s voting rights in the company increased from 7.5% to more than 45%.
Cheetah is expected to make faster decisions thereafter. At present, Cheetah Mobile is undergoing a full-scale transformation of artificial intelligence companies. Previously, the company’s main revenue came from overseas, and its mobile internet tool products are more popular overseas. On December 28, 2017, 58 Group CEO Yao Jinbo and member of Jingwei China Founding Team Zuo Lingyao also joined Cheetah Mobile as an independent company director.
In the past two years, Lei Jun gradually 'decentralized' the 'Leijun Department' and 'Jinshan Department' company.
After the Gathering Time (Nasdaq: YY) went public in 2012, Lei Jun held a 23.8% stake, which also provided Lei Jun with a billion US dollars in wealth. However, in 2017, Lei Jun resigned from the chairmanship of Gathering Times and will hold The voting rights of the equity were entrusted to Li Xueling, but Lei Jun still owns 17.5% of the stocks in the era of agglomerating and served as a consultant to the company.
In December 2007, Lei Jun resigned as Chief Executive Officer, Chief Technology Officer and President of Kingsoft, and was re-designated as a Non-Executive Director by Executive Director in August 2008.
However, there is another saying in the industry that Lei Jun’s resignation has a heavy purpose. It is hoped that before Xiaomi’s listing, it would try to avoid suspicion of excessive connected transactions.
The Cheetah 2017 Annual Report disclosed that the company has signed various agreements with Xiaomi to provide mutual marketing and software installation services. As of 2014, 2015 and 2016, the income of cheetahs from millet was RMB4.1 million and RMB117,000 respectively. At the same time, they paid RMB 28,000, and they respectively paid RMB 2.9 million, RMB 47.8 million and RMB 59.4 million to Xiaomi in the past three years.
At present, Lei Jun also serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Jinshan Networks.