"Snow King" Changes Leadership: A Capital Narrative of CFO Succession and a Battle to Protect a Trillion-Yuan Market Cap

(Source: Investors.com.cn - Thinking Finance)

[Consumer Insights] Break down Z-generation brand and new-consumption breakout logic—use data to show you who made the money.

On March 24, 2026, two announcements from Mixue Bingcheng were released to the capital markets on the same day.

One was its 2025 annual report: revenue of RMB 33.56 billion, up 35.2%; attributable net profit of RMB 5.88 billion, up 32.7% year over year. The other was a management reshuffle: founder Zhang Hongfu stepped down as CEO and took on the role of Co-Chairman; the successor was Zhang Yuan, the 35-year-old former CFO.

Two announcements—one bright, one quiet—together form a complete footnote to Mixue Bingcheng’s one-year anniversary since going public.

The market’s reaction was intriguing: on the day the annual report was released, shares of Mixue Group rose 5.95%, closing at HKD 341.8; meanwhile, as of March 25, its market capitalization had already evaporated by nearly HKD 100 billion compared with the peak in June 2025. The capital market priced the short-term performance with price gains, while using the long-term market-cap contraction to express concerns.

The “Xue Wang” change of leadership was never a simple personnel handover. It is a precise positioning in line with capital logic, and a strategic deployment for a battle to defend a market value in the hundreds of billions.

01

“A great-looking but uneasy” performance report

From the financial data, Mixue Bingcheng’s 2025 can be described as “steady, with the steady taking the lead.”

Revenue of RMB 33.56 billion and net profit nearing RMB 6 billion—both achieved growth of over 30%. By the end of 2025, the total number of global stores was approaching 60,000, including 55,000 in mainland China, with a net increase of 13,000 in a year. In terms of the supply chain, core ingredients were produced 100% independently; 28 domestic warehouses plus 8 overseas warehousing systems formed an end-to-end logistics network.

Cash and financial assets on the books rose from RMB 11.1 billion to RMB 19.99 billion, an increase of nearly 80%. The cash-flow dividend from listing has not fully been realized yet.

This is a performance report that most consumer brands would envy.

But a closer look shows the concerns are also clear.

The first concern: slowing profit growth and margin pressure. In 2025, net profit grew 32.7% year over year, lower than 39.8% in 2024. Even more alarming is that gross margin for sales of goods and equipment fell from 31.2% to 29.9%. The company attributed this to “changes in revenue mix and an increase in procurement costs for some raw materials.” For a company whose core moat is “extreme value for money,” any ripple on the cost side may directly erode the foundation of profits.

The second concern: obstacles to overseas expansion. As of the end of 2025, there were 4,467 overseas stores, down by 428 from the previous year. In its financial report, the company explained that it was due to “operational readjustment and optimization” in Indonesia and Vietnam. But the other side of “readjustment” is that expanding overseas is far from smooth—differences in consumer habits and challenges in localizing the supply chain are testing the “Xue Wang’s” global capabilities.

The third concern: weak same-store sales growth. International institutions such as UBS, Goldman Sachs, and BofA Lion (Lyon) all expressed concerns about Mixue’s same-store sales growth, predicting a possible 4%-5% decline in 2026. When store density approaches the ceiling, the diversion of traffic from long-standing stores is a scenario加盟商最不愿意看到的—franchisees are the least willing to see.

This “great-looking but uneasy” performance report precisely explains the timing of the change in leadership—handing over while performance is still strong is far more comfortable than rushing the transition after a crisis erupts.

02

From “brother team” to “investment-banking type”: the capital logic behind the CFO taking over

Zhang Yuan, who assumed the CEO role, was born in 1991 and holds a master’s in finance from Tsinghua University. His background is filled with the words “capital operations”: Bank of America Securities, Hillhouse Investments. His experience investing in the consumer sector also meant he participated in Mixue’s early due diligence and investment decisions.

Zhang Yuan joined Mixue in 2023 as CFO, became Executive Vice President in June 2025, and took over as CEO in March 2026. This promotion path was completed cleanly and decisively within three years.

Zhang Hongfu’s “retreat” is also highly meaningful. He did not leave; instead, he became Co-Chairman, and—together with his brother Zhang Hongchao—continued to steer the company in areas such as strategy, culture, public welfare, and innovation, in domains of “gazing at the stars.” In one summary sentence from the new CEO Zhang Yuan at the earnings briefing, he precisely captured the logic of role division: “Those who gaze at the stars” and “those who keep their heads down and rush on the road” each have their own responsibilities.

At least three layers lie beneath the logic of this personnel arrangement:

First, governance upgrades for a listed company. Mixue Bingcheng listed in Hong Kong in March 2025, transforming from a startup with strong family colors into a listed company subject to public supervision. The founder’s “delegation of authority” itself is an important marker of maturity in the corporate governance structure. Zhang Hongfu stepping down as CEO means that day-to-day operational management authority is transferred from the founder to professional managers—an essential basic requirement from the capital market for governance standardization.

Second, strategic front-loading of capital-operation capabilities. Mixue Bingcheng is at a critical juncture in multi-brand expansion and the global layout of its supply chain. Whether it is building overseas factories, investing in logistics hubs, or brand acquisition and integration, strong capital-operation capabilities are needed to support it. Zhang Yuan’s investment-banking background is precisely “tailor-made” for the strategic needs at this stage. Wu Zewei, a special research fellow at Sushang Bank, pointed out that a CEO with a finance background is more adept at, while expanding scale, strengthening financial control and evaluating investment returns.

Third, an industry-trend mapping of the CFO-to-CEO handover. This is not an isolated case. In 2023, JD.com CFO Xu Ran took over as CEO, improving profits through organizational adjustments and cost compression. In 2024, Hema’s CFO Yan Xiaolei took over from founder Hou Yi; in the following year, Hema achieved its first full-year profitability. In January 2026, the founder of Miaoke Lan Duo stepped down, and a finance executive from the Mengniu group took over. This series of leadership changes points to a signal: Chinese companies are shifting from “high-speed growth” to “refined operations.” When marginal returns from scale expansion diminish, refined operating capability and cost-control capability become core strengths for crossing the cycle.

03

The “credits and exits” of Zhang Hongfu: a turn made “to ride the trend”

In Mixue’s entrepreneurial narrative, the “complementarity” of the Zhang brothers has always been a classic script.

Brother Zhang Hongchao is introverted and steady, focusing on technology, advocating for building the supply chain in-house. Younger brother Zhang Hongfu is outward-facing and flamboyant, skilled at marketing, introducing the “Xue Wang” IP to drive brand youthfulness and internationalization. Conservative and aggressive complement each other perfectly, establishing Mixue’s core driver model of “low prices + supply chain.”

In December 2017, Zhang Hongfu became CEO. After that, Mixue stores surged from thousands to nearly 60,000. In March 2025, the company listed in Hong Kong; at one point the stock price broke above HKD 618, and market cap exceeded HKD 230 billion. The Zhang brothers’ wealth also rose accordingly. The 2026 Hurun Global Rich List shows both had personal wealth of RMB 50.5 billion, up 1.24 times from the previous year.

But after the peak, challenges followed one after another.

Since the second half of 2025, Mixue’s share price has been volatile and moving downward; its market cap has evaporated nearly HKD 100 billion from its high point. Store densification has led to traffic being split across stores, increasing profitability pressure for franchisees. In 2025, 2,527加盟店 were closed, up 57.1% year over year. Food safety issues continued to develop; on the Black Cat Complaints 【Download the Black Cat Complaints client】 platform, related complaints accumulated to over 11,000.

Zhang Hongfu’s stepping down is not really a “successful exit with no further involvement.” It is more like a strategic pivot made “to ride the trend.” He handed the burden of day-to-day operations to a successor with a more capital-oriented perspective, and he himself focused on long-term strategy, culture IP, and public-welfare innovation—these are precisely the areas he was best at during his tenure. Moving from CEO to Co-Chairman is not a dilution of power, but an accurate reallocation of functions.

04

A cloud of suspicions over “related-party transactions” hidden deep in the financials

If the change in leadership is the open line, then a “related-party acquisition” in the financial report is the hidden line—it touches the most sensitive nerves in the capital markets.

In 2025, Mixue Bingcheng spent RMB 297 million to acquire 53% equity in Fresh Beer Fulu Family, officially crossing into the fresh beer sector. It is not hard to understand the strategic logic behind this acquisition: to complete a full-scene layout of “early coffee, noon tea, and evening drinks,” and to build a second growth curve.

But the issue lies in the identity of the counterparty. The announcement shows that the earlier ultimate controlling person of Fulu Family was Tian Haixia, Zhang Hongfu’s wife, who directly held 60.05% of the shares. That means this is a typical “brother-and-relative related-party transaction.”

What makes the market even more wary is the valuation. Fulu Family only turned profitable in 2024, with net profit of just RMB 1.07 million. Based on the acquisition price, the P/E ratio reached 523 times, far above the average valuation level of the A/H-share beer sector. Although the transaction has followed compliance procedures and Zhang Hongfu recused himself from voting, a high-premium acquisition of related-party assets still inevitably leads investors to question whether this involves “the transfer of benefits.”

The effectiveness of integration after the acquisition will become the first “pressure test” faced by the incoming CEO Zhang Yuan. Differences in consumer scenarios and operating logic between the beer track and the tea-drinks track are significant. Whether the company can achieve the expected synergy effect remains full of uncertainty.

05

“Multi-brand” strategy: a test set for the new helmsman

At the earnings briefing, Zhang Yuan explicitly listed “coordinated development of the Lucky Coffee, Fresh Beer Fulu Family multi-brand strategy under unified management” as one of the key directions for 2026. This means Mixue Bingcheng is evolving from a single tea-drinks brand into a multi-brand platform of “tea drinks + coffee + fresh beer.”

Its sub-brand “Lucky Coffee” currently has more than 8,200 stores. It continues the main brand’s low-price route: an American-style coffee for 5 yuan per cup, expanding rapidly in lower-tier markets. China Merchants Securities’ (Shanxi Securities) forecast suggests there is still room of 9,000 to 17,000 stores.

“Fresh Beer Fulu Family,” meanwhile, continues Mixue’s familiar playbook: build breweries using supply-chain capabilities, quickly roll out stores via the franchise model, and keep the friendly pricing of 9.9 yuan. From about 1,200 stores before the acquisition to breaking 2,000 stores by February 2026, it added more than 800 stores net in just half a year.

In addition, Mixue is also trying out new categories such as breakfast and cakes, and even launched a “Xue Wang Amusement Park” project at its headquarters in Zhengzhou to explore a cultural-tourism integration model of “playing + shopping + experiencing.”

But the challenges of a multi-brand strategy are also obvious: will brand mindshare become blurred as boundaries expand? Will new businesses dilute management bandwidth? Can overseas markets form a profitable model that can be replicated? These are all mandatory questions facing Zhang Yuan.

06

Capital market valuation: switching from “growth” to “value”

Coming back to the capital market’s response to this leadership change—short-term share price gains but long-term market-cap pressure—seems contradictory, but is actually unified.

The short-term rise reflects the market’s positive interpretation of the signal that “the CFO is taking over.” When companies enter a phase of refined operations, CEOs with finance backgrounds are often better at cost control, efficiency improvement, and capital allocation. This is the market’s expectation for “reducing costs and increasing efficiency.”

Meanwhile, the long-term pressure on market capitalization reflects the market’s fundamental doubts about Mixue’s growth logic. When the store network is nearing 60,000, how much penetration room remains in mainland lower-tier markets? When overseas markets show store-closure adjustments, can the globalization story be兑现? When the gross margin of the core business declines, can multi-brand expansion support the valuation?

In a recent earnings call, Soochow Securities said Mixue Bingcheng, thanks to its steady expansion and profitability model, has clear room for valuation repair. But the prerequisite for valuation repair is proving that it will not only “open stores,” but also “make money”—not just making money at headquarters, but also making money for franchisees.

07

Conclusion: “gazing at the stars” and “keeping your head down to rush on”

The division of responsibilities in Zhang Yuan’s line at the earnings briefing—“gazing at the stars” and “keeping your head down to rush on”—may well be the most accurate footnote to this leadership change.

Zhang Hongfu’s “retreat” is a founder’s strategic step up in dimension, focusing his energy on the long-term propositions of “gazing at the stars.” Zhang Yuan’s “advance” is the arrival of capital elites, taking on the operational mission of “keeping your head down to rush on.”

But for Mixue Bingcheng, the real test has only just begun. As “Xue Wang” grows from a street stall into a listed company with a market value of one trillion, and expands from a single tea-drinks brand into a multi-brand platform, competing globally rather than only within China, it will need not just the founder’s foresight, but also a modern governance system capable of supporting such a massive scale.

A CFO taking over as CEO is only the first step in building this system. The next question is: when extreme value meets rising costs; when store density nears the ceiling; when related-party transactions raise trust concerns—can “Xue Wang” answer every question from the capital market with solid, real-world performance?

The answer is hidden in every operational decision made in 2026, and also in the numbers in the next annual report.

Massive information, precise interpretation—available on the Sina Finance APP

责任编辑：韦子蓉