定焦(dingjiaoone)原创
Author | Su Qi
Edit | Wei Jia
Dong Yuhui, who hates hot searches, is once again on the hot search on the whole network.
On July 25, Oriental Selection issued an announcement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and there was a thunderclap on the ground. According to the announcement information, from the same day, Dongfang Selection's wholly-owned subsidiary, Hehui Peer, will officially separate from Dongfang Selection, with Dong Yuhui personally holding 100% of its shares, with a purchase price of 76.58 million.
Subsequently, Yu Minhong issued an open letter, saying, "I arranged the money for Yuhui to buy the company, and the company gave it to Yuhui." In addition, he also won all the profits of his trip with Hui to Dong Yuhui. According to the announcement, the net profit of Hui in the past half a year is 140 million yuan.
It is said that the anchor IP is big, and it is a matter of time before he goes it alone, and this time Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Selection's separation is decent enough. Many people also praised Yu Minhong for having a pattern.
Dong Yuhui and Dongfang Selection's "grievances and hatreds" have begun since the small essay incident at the end of last year, Dong Yuhui first returned to Dongfang Selection to "calm down public anger", and a few days later announced the establishment of internal entrepreneurship and walked with Hui. In the past six months or so, Dong Yuhui and Yu Minhong have frequently been on the hot search, and under the dispute of public opinion, there has been a gap between Dongfang Selection and his counterparts with Hui, and there has been great uncertainty in the development of the two companies.
But with a decent separation, will the problem be completely solved?
Dongfang Selection, which stripped off the big anchors, seems to have less pressure, but how to explain it to investors and other anchors in the interior? Dong Yuhui, who is clamoring for not wanting to be an Internet celebrity, seems to be free, but what awaits him in front of him is another new challenge.
Both the money and the company were given, a decent separation
On July 25, Oriental Selection announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that Dong Yuhui had decided to no longer serve as an employee of the company and the senior management of a merged affiliated entity of the company, and that the departure was due to Dong Yuhui's career ambitions, investment in other businesses and personal schedule, and would take effect on July 25, 2024.
In the announcement, Oriental Selection announced that in addition to paying Dong Yuhui all the promised benefits and compensation, Yu Minhong, chairman of the board of directors, will distribute all the remaining undistributed profits of his peers to Dong Yuhui. According to the announcement, the net profit of Hui Peer from its establishment on December 22, 2023 to June 30, 2024 was about 141 million yuan.
In addition, the announcement also said that the buyer (Dong Yuhui) agreed to acquire 100% of the equity of the target company (with Hui) at a consideration of 76.5855 million yuan.
Yu Minhong said in "An Open Letter to Shareholders and Friends of Oriental Selection" that from today onwards, Dongfang Selection's wholly-owned subsidiary and Hui will be officially independent from Oriental Selection, and Dong Yuhui will personally hold 100% of its equity. At the same time, "I arranged the money for Yuhui to buy the company (referring to the selection by Dongfang), and the company gave it to Yuhui." ”
In the past, under his coordination, the company spent a few days to free up more than 1,000 square meters of office space for Hui peers, organized a mature team of about 60 people, and provided a vending system, pallet supply and a large number of equipment and facilities support. As for the independence of Hui Peer, the new office space is completed by the professional team of New Oriental Asset, and the company's support for Hui Peer, including the docking of government resources and business opportunities, is also the same as always.
Subsequently, Dong Yuhui issued a response, reviewing his bits and pieces from a teacher to an anchor and now independent in New Oriental, expressing his gratitude to the company and Yu Minhong, and said: "Considering the current actual situation and development plan, after friendly consultation and unanimous decision between the two parties, the company will start to operate independently with Hui." The future is unpredictable, only to go all out".
As for the reason for the separation, Yu Minhong explained in his response that he had reduced the number of times he appeared in front of the camera with Hui and Dongfang Selection, because once it appeared, it was an intensive attack, and Yuhui also received a lot of groundless accusations. In addition, the power of public opinion often affects the development of the company, although there is no communication barrier between themselves and Yuhui, but the complex public opinion disputes, directly lead to the estrangement of Dongfang selection and Hui peers, resulting in huge uncertainty in the development of the company on both sides.
This is a seemingly decent "separation", and many people describe Yu Minhong with kindness and a big picture. Mai Zi, head of MCN agency operations, told "Fixed Focus" that the official acquisition fee is 76.58 million, which is not high, and it is selected by Dongfang. In doing so, it may be that the impact of this incident is minimized.
However, the separation and the sale of Hui at a low price, fans and shareholders obviously did not buy it, which was directly reflected in the capital market. As of press time, New Oriental's share price fell 5.46% to $70.33 per share.
Is Dong Yuhui really independent?
The root cause of the split incident that triggered the whole network can be traced back to the small essay incident in Dongfang Selection last year.
In December 2023, because of the question of who wrote the promotional copy of the live video of "Trip to Jilin", it triggered a multi-party debate between Dong Yuhui's fans, Dongfang Selection Editor, Dong Yuhui and the company's management.
A few days later, Sun Dongxu, CEO of Oriental Selection, "held a meeting" in the live broadcast room of Oriental Selection, and pointed the finger at the behavior of the fan circle. As a result, Dongfang Selection continued to lose fans and the stock price plummeted, the account was suspended several times, and the live broadcast room and stock price of the competitor Gaotu Jiapin ushered in a splash of wealth.
This small essay incident exposed the internal management problems of Dongfang Selection.
In the end, Yu Minhong came forward. He posted a video saying, "Xiaobian's approach is seriously lacking in professionalism, which shows that there are big loopholes in the company's management, and Sun Dongxu's approach is also inappropriate, and I have leadership responsibility as the chairman." ”
At a critical juncture, at that time, many sources reported that a company was robbing Dong Yuhui, and Luo Yonghao, a former New Oriental famous teacher, publicly talked about the Dong Yuhui incident in the circle of friends and the live broadcast room of making friends, and encouraged Dong Yuhui to come out and do it himself. In the end, the turmoil ended with Sun Dongxu being removed from the position of CEO and Dong Yuhui staying.
But that's not the end of the story. At the end of December 2023, Dong Yuhui officially left "Oriental Selection", created a new account "Walking with Hui", and launched 7 new anchors, opening a new road of live broadcasting. In just three months, the cumulative sales of the "Walking with Hui" live broadcast room were close to 2 billion yuan, far exceeding the "Oriental Selection" in the same period.
Image source / The official video number of Walking with Hui
On July 21 this year, he moved to a new office location with Hui Peer, and the live broadcast exceeded 14 hours that day, with more than 3 million viewers and nearly 80 million live broadcast sales. In the live broadcast of the day, Dong Yuhui also expressed his gratitude to Yu Minhong many times, and the outside world did not expect that this would be the last time Dong Yuhui would conduct a live broadcast as an employee of Dongfang Selection.
This incident once again verifies a law - the big anchor will eventually separate from the company.
In the three years of the rapid development of live broadcast e-commerce, Li Ziqi and Lang Gaixian have had a separation crisis with the MCN agency behind them, and Xin Xuan has broken out a "internal strife" crisis similar to Dongfang Selection.
Maizi said that Yu Minhong, as a traditional entrepreneur, was the first time he came into contact with the organizational model problem of the "big anchor", and he had hesitated and made a choice between the CEO and Dong Yuhui. "At that time, he may not have felt that the super IP of live broadcast e-commerce, its ability to obtain resources, bring influence and benefits, and the ability to pay individual premiums may be far greater than any role in the company, including the CEO."
But this time, Yu Minhong seems to have struck a balance between the company and personal IP. Yu Minhong did not hesitate to "preferentially" Dong Yuhui this time, and paved the way for the future development of walking with Hui, perhaps out of the consideration of not letting Dongfang Selection be influenced by Dong Yuhui, but he personally wanted to tie up Dong Yuhui.
Zhao Yuanyuan, a former veteran of the live broadcast e-commerce industry, also commented in the circle of friends: Dong Yuhui just left New Oriental, a listed company, and his existence will only make the company's business subject questioned, and make the positioning blurred, which will affect the stock price. But it is unlikely that he will leave the "universe of Yu Minhong", and the money for redemption is all paid by Lao Yu, what will you pay back?
However, this is not a bad thing for Dong Yuhui, Maizi said, if he is not independent, Dong Yuhui will always be the anchor, even if he starts an internal business, he will be subject to a lot of restrictions, and he will also consume each other with the original company system, and only the independent IP is the real IP. Now Dong Yuhui is wholly owned by Hui and walks with Hui, "his identity can be defined by himself, and as for whether he can do well in the future, it all depends on his own ability."
Who is more affected after the separation?
Dongfang Selection and Walking with Hui have separated, and the outside world is curious, what impact does the separation have on each side, and who is more affected?
According to Maizi's analysis, after the establishment of Hui Peer, both sides have experienced a decline in potential energy in the past six months.
Let's look at Dongfang Selection first, in the past half a year, not only has the style of bringing goods changed, but the attention is not as good as before.
Around June this year, the anchor of Dongfang's selection of beautiful life live broadcast room shouted hard about the product, "You are here, buy a single and then go" "321, on the link!" Such a change in style made many netizens cry out disappointed.
On May 31, Yu Minhong said in a live broadcast that "Dongfang Selection is doing a mess now", after this remark was searched, the share price of Dongfang Selection fell by 9.92% at the close of the day, and the market value shrank by more than HK $1.8 billion in a single day.
At the end of June, Dongfang selected the popular anchor Dunton publicly expressed his dissatisfaction: "I think the company is more annoyed by the fact that many things are not discussed with the anchor now, and the account is not discussed with the anchor." Afterwards, the topic sparked heated discussions, and Dongfang Selection was suspended for a day.
All kinds of incidents have caused netizens to question the internal management of Dongfang Selection, and more and more exposed the fact that it is an MCN organization. The capital market is not optimistic about the model and prospects of MCN institutions.
On the other hand, whether it is with Hui or Dong Yuhui, the performance is not stable enough.
This 618 is the first big promotion after the establishment of Hui Peer, and in the previous March and April, it was firmly ranked first on the monthly list of Douyin talents, but this time it fell to the third place (May 24-June 18), which may be related to the reduction of the live broadcast frequency of the anchor Dong Yuhui. The Oriental Selection only ranked 11th, falling out of the top 10.
According to statistics, Dong Yuhui only participated in 7 live broadcasts of 618 promotions this year, and showed fatigue in a certain talk show, saying that his sleep was very bad, and he "resisted selling things", and was "very disgusted" by others calling him an Internet celebrity. In February before, Dong Yuhui appeared on Weibo hot search because of "three refusals to explain underwear and underwear", and was accused of "disrespecting people" and "discriminating against women". Subsequently, Dong Yuhui emptied his personal Weibo account.
Image source / Douyin account with Hui
In the next six months, how to adjust the state and stabilize the situation is a common dilemma in front of the two. In addition to this, they have their own problems to solve.
Some voices pointed out that whether walking with Hui is really independent, the answer needs to continue to wait and see. Because it can be seen from Yu Minhong's open letter that most of the government resources, suppliers and customer resources that travel with Hui are still in Dongfang Zhen.
A careful look at the live broadcast room with Hui can also be seen that in addition to not selling Dongfang Selection's own products, most of the other products coincide with Dongfang Selection. "From the perspective of the people and goods of live broadcast e-commerce, the part of the goods involves the supply chain, which is a big shortcoming of the company at present. If it is not handled well, the quality control problem that will be pressed on the head of Dongfang Selection will also be pressed on the same time as Hui Peer", Mai Zi said.
而对东方甄选来说，除了要想办法稳住股价、向投资人交代之外，还要在宇董辉单飞之后想办法稳住东方甄选其他主播和高管。 As for other management assignments, they should also be completed in a timely manner.
For Dongfang Selection, which is backed by listed companies for business transformation, it is even more critical to deal with such problems, because the dissatisfaction of the capital market and consumers will continue to be reflected in the stock price.
But it is almost certain that Dong Yuhui's focus in the future should not be on selling goods. As he mentioned in the live broadcast that he returned after the small essay incident, he believed that "the world is not short of me as a seller, and it is not my heart to become a streamer and sales champion", and at that time he hoped that his focus would be on agriculture, books, culture, tourism, and author interviews. It's just that it's not easy to be free, and his independent counterpart with Hui needs his traffic and his management ability even more.
According to the analysis of industry insiders, separation is not the best choice, but it must be an inevitable choice.
*The title picture comes from the official video account of Walking with Hui. At the request of the interviewee, Maizi is a pseudonym in the article.