Dentons advises Qing-Feng Steamed Dumpling Shop on mixed-ownership reform

Recently, the time-honored Qing-Feng Steamed Dumpling Shop has wrapped up its mixed-ownership reform. As the legal counsel for Beijing Huatian Catering Group ("Huatian Group"), a Dentons Beijing-based team, led by partner Liu Yahui, provided a full scope legal assistance on the restructuring and mixed-ownership reform of Huatian's subsidiary – Beijing Qing-Feng Catering Management Co., Ltd. ("Qing-Feng").

On August 8, representatives of Qing-Feng's four shareholders –Huatian Group, Financial Street Capital Operation Center, Shanghai Fosun High Technology (Group) and the ESOP platform – signed a shareholder's agreement at the Beijing Equity Exchange. At this point, Qing-Feng completed the introduction of private capital and ESOP, and became a state-controlled mixed ownership enterprise.

Qing-Feng took this reform as an opportunity to introduce advanced corporate governance structure. Through restructuring, Qing-Feng will enhance its governance system and structure, establish a more effective incentive mechanism, and lay a solid foundation for taking it to the capital markets, so as to achieve its strategic goal of making Qing-Feng a leading Chinese fast food brand.

Since 2015, Dentons China has been retained by Huatian Group to advise on Qing-Feng's restructuring.

Since then, with professional and devoted work attitude, our team provided a full scope legal service for Qing-Feng, including developing the reorganization and restructuring plan, mixed-ownership reform program and the employee stock ownership plan, building the ESOP platform, reviewing the beneficiaries of the ESOP scheme, carrying out due diligence, formulating Qing-Feng's public listing plan, witnessing the comprehensive review process, drafting legal instruments such as shareholder's agreement, issuing attorney's legal opinions, and providing advices on other related matters. Finally, we assisted Huatian Group in transforming Qing-Feng from a state-owned enterprise into a state-controlled mixed ownership enterprise, and in being successfully approved by the government as one of the first six state-owned enterprises in Beijing to pilot employee stock ownership program.

As the legal advisor of Huatian Group, building on our rich experience in the field of state-owned enterprise and capital markets practices and our global platform, Dentons will continue to provide professional services for Qing-Feng in entering the capital markets and international market, and make contributions to the reform and development of state-owned enterprises.