Luckin Coffee founder and chairman Charles Zhengyao Lu has been ousted by shareholders at the scandal-hit Chinese coffee chain, just days after a proposal to unseat him failed to win board approval.
Three other directors, including two major investors in the company and Sean Shao, head of a special committee investigating the accounting fraud at the group, were also removed from the board while two independent directors were added at an extraordinary meeting in Beijing on Sunday.
The shake-up is the latest twist in the Luckin saga after Nasdaq last month delisted the company, known as China’s answer to Starbucks. That followed an earlier disclosure that the chain had fabricated Rmb2.2bn ($313m) in sales last year, equivalent to three-quarters of the sales for the nine months the fraud covered. Luckin went from launch to a New York listing in just 18 months, disclosing the falsified accounting in April, less than a year after its market debut when it raised $695m.