In a filing to the SEC, Luckin Coffee has announced that CEO Qian Zhiya (also former CEO of CAR Inc.) and COO Liu Jian have been fired from their positions. This comes after “. . . evidence that sheds more light on the fabricated transactions described in the press release issued by the Company on April 2, 2020.” The Luckin board has appointed Guo Jinyi as Acting CEO.
No mention of Lu Zhengyao, chairman of the board and driving force behind CAR Inc. and the upstart coffee chain, was made in the filings. The firing of both Qian and Liu come more than a month after Qian’s beneficial and voting interests “decreased significantly” when Lu defaulted on $518 million loan from Goldman Sachs and a syndicate of other lenders.
Liu Erhai, founder of Joy Capital and prominent backer of both CAR Inc. and Luckin, remains on the compensation committee.
This is a developing story. TechNode will continue to follow it and update as necessary. Stay tuned.
Read more: Luckin fraud admission leaves more questions than answers