Former CFO of McDonald's China joins the company Ba Wang Cha Ji, plans to accelerate the listing process.

According to media reports, Huang Hongfei, the former chief financial officer (CFO) of McDonald's China, will join the mainland tea drink store, Dabawang Tea Ji. Analysts pointed out that this means the listing process of Dabawang Tea Ji is expected to accelerate. On October 14th of this year, Huang Hongfei left McDonald's China and will join Dabawang Tea Ji after a short break. The report also pointed out that the founder of Dabawang Tea Ji, Zhang Junjie, is currently undergoing a round of "upgrading of the executive team" to upgrade the future store operation mode, supply chain, digital system, etc. of Dabawang Tea Ji. As early as April of this year, media reports stated that Dabawang Tea Ji was preparing to go public in the United States, and there may be significant progress in the second half of the year. The expected fundraising scale for this time is between $200 million and $300 million, and it will be responsible for listing matters by CitiGroup and Morgan Stanley. Huang Hongfei's personal information shows that he joined McDonald's (Guangzhou) in 1996 and was transferred to vice president and general manager of Central China of McDonald's China in 2010, responsible for all business in Central China including new store development, operations, and market management. The Dabawang Tea Ji brand was founded in June 2017. By 2023, Dabawang Tea Ji experienced explosive growth, opening over 2300 new stores within the year, averaging 6 new stores opened every day. With 2300 new stores, it is three times the total number of stores in the past five years. After the store opening surge in 2023, by May 2024, the total number of stores worldwide reached 4092. Dabawang Tea Ji has undergone several rounds of financing, with investors including XVC, Fosun, Fosun Rui Zheng Capital, Cong Bi Qiu Shi, among others. According to the Dabawang Tea Ji website, in addition to many cities in mainland China, stores have been opened in Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, exceeding 4500 globally, selling over 1 billion cups a year. The Hong Kong store opened at K11 in Tsim Sha Tsui in September.