Kuaishou Chairman Reduces Shares for Charity and Cutting-Edge Technology
Su Hua, Chairman of Chinese short video streaming platform Kuaishou, reduced his holdings of 54,713,783 Class B company shares after the trading session on January 18. Kuaishou responded that the proceeds will be used for charitable donations, cutting-edge scientific and technological exploration and infrastructure investment.
Su still holds 9.87% of the shares of Kuaishou, 38.08% of voting rights, and remains its controlling shareholder. The firm said that the sale would not have any adverse impacts on the normal operation of the company.
In recent years, founders of many Chinese internet giants have been keen to engage in public welfare, including smartphone maker Xiaomi, e-commerce platforms Pinduoduo and JD.com and others.
On March 17, 2021, Huang Zheng, the founder of Pinduoduo, announced that he would no longer serve as the chairman, and would focus on basic research in the fields of food science and life science, so as to explore a new space for the firm’s high-speed, high-quality and in-depth development 10 years later.
In July 2021, Xiaomi announced that firm chairman Lei Jun had donated about 616 million Class B shares of Xiaomi to two charities – the Xiaomi Foundation and the Lei Jun Foundation – all of which were used for charitable purposes. In the same month, Lei announced that Xiaomi had donated 500 million yuan ($73,795,291) to set up a joint fund of Beijing Natural Science Foundation and Xiaomi for innovation.
In February 2022, Richard Liu, Chairman and CEO of JD.com, donated 62,376,643 Class B ordinary shares to third-party foundations for charitable purposes. Based on the stock price at that time, the value of shares donated by Liu exceeded $2.34 billion. JD.com said that the donation was mainly used for social welfare undertakings such as education and environmental protection, which Liu has long been concerned about.
In June 2017, Liu donated 300 million yuan to Renmin University to set up a fund, then in April 2018, 200 million yuan was donated to Tsinghua University to support the construction and development of the Schwarzman College and Center for Global Competence Development.
SEE ALSO: Kuaishou CTO Chen Dingjia Resigns
In the past six months, personnel adjustments at Kuaishou have been continuous. Looking at the four personnel adjustments last year, Kuaishou is adjusting business segments related to commercialization in an almost progressive way. A management committee composed of core senior management teams has been set up, the structure of commercial ecological construction was adjusted, and local life business teams were integrated. The specific business departments in commercialization were adjusted. Through a series of adjustments, the highlight is still e-commerce and businesses with good liquidity.
