Luckin Coffee execs demand CEO's ouster

A group of executives at Luckin Coffee Inc. signed a letter to remove Chairman and CEO Jinyi Guo, accusing him of cronyism, abuse of power and incompetence, Caixin reported Jan. 7, citing the letter.

Guo became the company's chairman and CEO in July 2020 after Charles Zhengyao Lu was ousted in connection with the findings of an internal investigation regarding revelations of 2.2 billion Chinese yuan in fabricated sales.

Luckin Coffee confirmed in a statement that its board received a letter from certain employees on Jan. 4 with allegations against Guo and has formed an independent committee to probe the claims and the circumstances of the letter.

The committee will be led by one of the joint provisional liquidators and have two independent nonexecutive directors.

The Chinese coffee chain also noted that the allegations against Guo are not related to the accounting fraud disclosed on April 2, 2020.