Spring Airlines, officially changing hands!

Airwefly

2024-06-21 20:09Published in Guangxi

On June 20, Shanghai Spring International Travel Service (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Spring International Travel Service") disclosed the change of actual controller and major shareholder: Wang Yu replaced Wang Zhenghua and became the major shareholder of Spring International Travel Service.

Wang Yu's shareholding has risen from about 21% to more than 52%, while Wang Zhenghua's shareholding has dropped from more than 32% to only 1%.

Spring Airlines, officially changing hands!

Spring International Travel Service is the controlling shareholder of Spring Airlines, and the completion of the change of actual controller and major shareholder means that the most profitable airline in the mainland has officially changed hands.

This equity change originated from Wang Zhenghua's gift of equity to Wang Yu. Wang Yu is the eldest son of Wang Zhenghua, who is 54 years old this year, and Wang Zhenghua just turned 80 this year.

As early as seven years ago, the then 73-year-old Wang Zhenghua (pictured below, middle) handed over the chairmanship of Spring Airlines to his eldest son, Wang Yu (first from the right). Wang Zhenghua also has a son, 49-year-old Wang Wei (third from left), who currently manages Spring Airlines' tourism sector and serves as president of Spring International Travel Service, having previously served as chairman of Spring Airlines Japan.

Aviation was not Wang Yu's first career. His first job as a railway major was in the railway system, and then he went to the United States to study, when his father only gave him 50,000 yuan.

"I didn't give him any more money during my eight years in the United States, and after returning to China, I not only came back with two master's degrees, but also earned $20,000 myself." Wang Zhenghua was very satisfied with his son at that time.

After returning to China, Wang Yu did not directly enter Spring Airlines, but worked for seven years in a number of consulting companies such as Roland Berger, BearingPoint, and Hewitt before he began to participate in the operation and management of Spring Airlines.

After taking over the chairmanship of Spring Airlines from his father seven years ago, Mr. Wang's office has not changed — a room of less than 20 square meters is compactly packed with three desks, and the word "vice president" is labeled on the uneven door.

Since joining Spring Airlines in 2008 as vice president, Wang Yu has worked in this "simple" room, with two other desks belonging to the company's president, Wang Zhijie, and his younger brother, Wang Wei.

However, in October this year, Spring Airlines is expected to move into a new office, no longer renting a hotel built in the 90s near Hongqiao Airport, but building itself.

After the completion of the equity gift, Wang Zhenghua, Wang Yu and Wang Wei respectively hold 1%, 52.9470% and 10.7894% of the shares of Spring International Travel Service, the controlling shareholder of Spring Airlines, and 1%, 42.19% and 8.64% of the shares of Spring and Autumn Charter Airlines.

As shown in the figure above, among the shareholders of Spring Airlines, there are also Chunxiang Investment and Chunyi Investment, which were established in 2010 mainly to allow more employees to share the dividends of the listing.

Among them, Chunxiang Investment is a company established by 48 middle and senior managers, core technical personnel, pilots and other business backbones of Spring Airlines, while Chunyi Investment is a company established by 39 management and backbone companies of Spring Airlines and Spring International Travel Service.

In recent years, Spring Airlines has also been expanding the scope of employee stock ownership. For example, in July last year, the latest batch of employee stock ownership was to let employees receive the company's shares at a price of 51.46 yuan per share, which was repurchased by the company and sold to employees at a discount, at that time, Spring Airlines' share price was 62.9 yuan, and today's closing price is 55.83 yuan.

In 2023, Spring Airlines is the most profitable airline in the mainland, with a net profit of 2.257 billion yuan, which not only turned around significantly year-on-year, but also exceeded the level of 19 years before the epidemic.

In the first quarter, Spring and Autumn continued to make great progress, with a profit of 810 million yuan, accounting for one-third of the total profit of all domestic airlines with less than one-tenth of the country's fleet size. (According to the disclosure of the China Aviation Association, the overall profit of domestic airlines in the first quarter of this year was 2.46 billion yuan).

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