On January 26, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced supplementary material requirements for overseas issuance and listing registration (January 19, 2024 to January 25, 2024). Among them, the announcement mentioned concluding opinions requiring Gu Ming to further explain the legal compliance of overseas offshore structures and regulatory procedures involving return investment.
The Zhitong Finance App learned that on January 26, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced the requirements for supplementary materials for overseas issuance and listing registration (January 19, 2024 to January 25, 2024). Among them, the announcement mentioned requesting Gu Ming to further explain the legal compliance of overseas offshore structures and regulatory procedures involving return investment. According to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange disclosure on January 2, Gu Ming handed over to the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with Goldman Sachs and UBS Group as co-sponsors.
Specifically, the Securities Regulatory Commission announced that Gu Ming was requested to provide additional explanations on the following matters, and that lawyers were requested to conduct inspections and issue clear legal opinions:
1. Please explain: (1) Concluding opinions on legal compliance with foreign exchange registration, overseas investment, foreign investment, tax payment, etc. involving the issuer's offshore structure and return investment; (2) the reasons why Guming Technology reduced capital after multiple capital increases during the red chip restructuring process; (3) the reasons why the registered capital of some major domestic operating entities was not paid up and whether compliance had a significant adverse impact on the company's business operations and solvency.
2. Please explain: the time, type, operation method, and duration of the issuer's equity incentive trust, the rights and obligations of each trust party and the circumstances of the trust beneficiaries, etc., as well as whether there are outsiders in the employee shareholding plan and whether there is any transfer of benefits.
3. Please explain: (1) whether the status of products such as apps, applets, and public accounts developed and operated by the company and its subsidiaries involves providing information content to third parties, such as providing, explaining the types of information content and security protection measures for information content; (2) the scale of collected and stored user information, data collection and use, and personal information protection and data security arrangements or measures before and after listing.
According to the prospectus, Guming is an industry-leading and rapidly growing Chinese ready-to-drink company committed to providing consumers with fresh, delicious, consistent, and affordable high-quality products. According to the Insight Consulting Report, in terms of product sales (GMV) in 2023 and number of stores as of December 31, 2023, “Guming” is the largest popular tea shop brand in China, and the second largest ready-to-use tea shop brand in China at full price. In 2023, the company's GMV reached RMB 19.2 billion, an increase of 37.2% over 2022. As of December 31, 2023, the company's store network had a total of 9001 stores, an increase of 35.0% over December 31, 2022. Based on the number of stores as of December 31, 2023, the company is one of the top five ready-to-drink brands in the world.