China News Service, January 24 (China News reporter Xie Yiguan) On the evening of January 22, Meibang Apparel announced that Hu Jiajia applied to resign as the company’s president and appointed Zhou Chengjian as the company’s president.
Seven years ago, Hu Jiajia took the "handover baton" from her father Zhou Chengjian, and now the "handover baton" has returned to Zhou Chengjian's hands.
Hu Jiajia resigned as president, the company said she has another position
According to the announcement issued by Meibang Apparel, Hu Jiajia applied to resign from the position of president of the company due to work adjustment.
The relevant work that Hu Jiajia was responsible for has been handed over, and his resignation will not affect the company's normal production and operations.
Screenshot of Meibang Apparel announcement.
On the 23rd, Meibang Apparel told reporters from China News that Hu Jiajia will have another job.
On the evening of January 5, Meibang Apparel announced that Hu Jiajia applied to resign as chairman of the company's sixth board of directors, director, member of the nomination committee, member of the remuneration and assessment committee and chairman of the strategy committee due to personal reasons.
After resigning from the above-mentioned positions, Hu Jiajia continued to serve as the company's president.
But just 17 days later, Hu Jiajia announced her "farewell" to the position of president.
Although Hu Jiajia no longer holds a management position in the company after her resignation, her shareholding in Meibang Apparel has not changed.
As of January 22, Hu Jiajia held 225 million shares of the company, accounting for 8.96% of the company's total share capital.
After Hu Jiajia retires from the company's management position, her father Zhou Chengjian will serve as the company's president.
Judging from the information previously released by the company, there have been signals for the transfer of duties between father and daughter.
In November last year, the "American" public account published an article announcing that founder Zhou Chengjian would return to business.
The article also used the words "the founder is in charge and business is picking up."
It once had more than 5,000 stores and was known as the "King of Pedestrian Streets"
Public information shows that Meibang Clothing was founded in 1995 by Zhou Chengjian.
At that time, he opened the first Metersbonwe store in Wenzhou and implemented brand chain operations.
Before that, this young man who was born in Lishui, Zhejiang Province had been working as a tailor for many years.
After establishing his own brand, Zhou Chengjian began to think about how to gain popularity.
Since then, as a number of popular celebrities have become Metersbonwe’s brand spokespersons, the slogan “Metersbonwe does not take the ordinary path” has become a household name.
Data map: Zhou Chengjian, founder of Meibang Apparel.
In 2008, Meibang Apparel was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and became the “No. 1 casual apparel stock” in the A-share market.
After the company went public, Zhou Chengjian's wealth also soared, with his net worth rising from 16 billion yuan in 2008 to 21.6 billion yuan in 2010, making him the richest man in the "Hurun Apparel Rich List" for three consecutive years.
In the 2008 Forbes China (Mainland) Rich List, he was also promoted to the richest man in Zhejiang.
2011 was the "peak" of Meibang Apparel's performance, with revenue of approximately 9.945 billion yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of approximately 1.21 billion yuan.
Metersbonwe, which is not short of money, is getting bigger and bigger.
In 2013, Metersbonwe had more than 5,000 stores nationwide and was known as the "King of Pedestrian Streets".
But the scenery also implies danger.
Due to high inventory pressure and the impact of external brands, in 2015, Meibang Apparel, whose performance had declined for three consecutive years, suffered a loss for the first time.
In 2016, Zhou Chengjian’s eldest daughter Hu Jiajia was elected as the chairman of Meibang Apparel.
Her resume shows that she was born in 1986. She graduated from Aston University with a major in marketing and received a master's degree in fashion marketing from Marangoni Institute in London. She had previously worked in various departments of American Apparel for many years.
After taking over Smith Barney, Hu Jiajia emphasized the youthful tone of the brand, not only aligning the design with young people, but also continuing to make efforts at the retail end.
However, after some twists and turns, Meibang Apparel's performance has not improved significantly. Except for profits in 2016 and 2018, the other years ended with losses.
In recent years, Meibang Apparel has also fallen into the embarrassing situation of selling assets and closing stores to "stop the bleeding".
"Founder Zhou Chengjian chose to return to the helm at this critical moment, not only out of a sense of responsibility for the survival of the company, but also as an emergency response to the current crisis situation." Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, believes that this means that Meibang Apparel has returned to the Seeking a path to rebirth under the leadership of the founder.
Data map: Citizens shopping in stores.
Photo by Zhang Jian
From behind the scenes to the stage, Zhou Chengjian aims at "digitization"
In the years since Hu Jiajia took over, although Zhou Chengjian no longer holds management positions, he is still the actual controller of the group.
The National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System shows that Shanghai Huafu Investment Co., Ltd., controlled by Zhou Chengjian, currently holds 34.13% of the equity of Meibang Apparel.
This time Zhou Chengjian comes from behind the scenes to the stage. In Jiang Han's view, he may be able to bring about strategic adjustments and more decisive execution that are more in line with the foundation of the United States.
Judging from the information disclosed by Meibang Apparel, in order to save the sluggish performance, Zhou Chengjian will carry out "drastic" reforms.
In an open letter sent by Meibang Apparel, Zhou Chengjian mentioned "digitalization" several times and said, "We must use the digital management mechanism to completely solve the challenges of serious problems such as quality, cost, and serious abnormal delivery times that have arisen in the past few years. , solving these fundamental problems will ensure healthy positive capital flow efficiency, and also guarantee the timely implementation of supply investment."
The reporter noticed that in 2023, Zhou Chengjian successively established Hangzhou Meters Digital Industry Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Meters Digital Industry Co., Ltd. to develop online channels.
In November last year, an article published by the "Meibangren" public account also stated that the single offline consumption scenario in the past is no longer suitable for today's market, and the operating difficulties caused by the past willfulness need to be improved through step-by-step changes.
At present, Metersbonwe has comprehensively promoted the global consumption scenario strategy of content e-commerce, search e-commerce, and offline channels, and created good products around new consumption scenarios.
The article also mentioned that Smith Barney's online strategy has achieved initial results, market performance has recovered, and the company plans to increase operating investment to deepen this transformation opportunity.
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