The 5.5 billion yuan sky-high divorce case: the former "richest couple in Xiaogan" face off in court, the market value of Broad-Ocean Motor evaporates by more than 2 billion yuan in one day, and the actual control rights may change.
On July 8, the first trading day after the announcement of the divorce dispute between Lu Chuping and Peng Hui, the actual controllers of Broad Ocean Motor (002249.SZ), the stock price opened sharply lower, then hit the limit down, closing at 7.46 yuan per share, down 10.01%, with a single-day market value evaporation of over 2 billion yuan. On July 9, the stock price of Broad Ocean Motor continued its downward trend at the opening, and as of press time, the decline exceeded 6%.
On the evening of July 7, according to the announcement of Broad Ocean Motor concerning litigation involving its controlling shareholder and actual controller, the divorce dispute filed by Peng Hui against Lu Chuping has been accepted by the First People's Court of Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province. Peng Hui requested the court to rule on the divorce and divide the marital property.
The announcement shows that Lu Chuping directly holds about 614 million shares of Broad Ocean Motor, accounting for 24.87% of the total share capital; Peng Hui directly holds about 48.09 million shares, accounting for 1.95% of the total share capital. The two parties directly hold a total of about 662 million shares, accounting for 26.82% of the total share capital. Calculated based on the closing price of 8.29 yuan per share on July 7, the market value corresponding to this part of the equity is about 5.488 billion yuan.
It is worth noting that on the same day the divorce announcement was disclosed, three senior executives of Broad Ocean Motor announced the early termination of their share reduction plans and promised not to reduce their holdings within six months. This "coincidence" in timing is thought-provoking.
At this time, Broad Ocean Motor is in a critical period for its Hong Kong stock IPO. A reporter from *Time Weekly* noted that the above announcement clearly stated that "this divorce lawsuit does not involve disguised share reduction or evasion of relevant share reduction restrictions", trying to draw a clear line from the market concerns about "divorce-style share reduction". However, the announcement also admitted that "there is uncertainty as to whether the company's actual control will change".
The *Time Weekly* reporter called Broad Ocean Motor regarding related issues, but the call was never answered; an interview letter was sent simultaneously, and no reply had been received as of press time.
01
The judgment may take more than half a year
The story of Lu Chuping and Peng Hui is a typical entrepreneurial history of Chinese private entrepreneurs.
Lu Chuping, born in 1965, comes from an ordinary rural family in Xiaogan, Hubei Province. After graduating from the Automation Department of South China University of Technology in 1988, he joined the washing machine factory of Weili Group as an engineer and later was promoted to deputy director of the motor factory of Weili Group. In 2000, he invested 2.7 million yuan to co-found Zhongshan Broad Ocean Motor Co., Ltd., the predecessor of Broad Ocean Motor, with Xu Haiming, the current vice chairman and president of Broad Ocean Motor. Peng Hui is also a founding veteran. She joined the company in 2000 and has successively served as the minister and director of the Audit Department, and is currently a director of Broad Ocean Motor. In 2008, Broad Ocean Motor was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Since then, the couple has built Broad Ocean Motor into a leading manufacturer of HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) motors, becoming a core supplier to the domestic air conditioning industry. In 2022, the two ranked 2843rd on the *2022 Hurun Global Rich List* with a fortune of 7.5 billion yuan, and topped the list of "the richest man in Xiaogan" in the same year; in 2024, they still ranked 875th on the *2024 Hurun China Rich List* with 6 billion yuan.
Lu Chuping, 61, and Peng Hui, 58, the couple who have worked hand in hand to start a business for more than 20 years, finally chose to go to court.
△ Lu Chuping, founder and chairman of Broad Ocean Motor. Source: Broad Ocean Motor official website
From the perspective of the equity structure, Lu Chuping's 24.87% shareholding is relatively concentrated but not an absolute controlling stake. If the property division results in Peng Hui obtaining a large proportion of equity, and the two cannot maintain a concert party relationship, the company's control structure will face reconstruction. Senior investment banker Wang Jiyue analyzed to the *Time Weekly* reporter: "After the divorce, it is possible that only shares are divided, which does not affect the control. It depends on the negotiation between the two parties. Of course, a situation where there is no controlling person may also arise, but this may not be in the interests of both parties."
In addition, Lu Chuping and Peng Hui were previously presumed to be concert parties. After the equity division, will the original concert party relationship be terminated? Lawyer Zhang Jian from Beijing Zhuohao Law Firm told the *Time Weekly* reporter that the current laws and regulations do not stipulate that divorce will automatically terminate all concert party relationships, and two situations need to be judged: if the two parties have signed a written concert party agreement, the dissolution of the marriage will not affect the validity of the agreement, and the termination of the relationship needs to be executed in accordance with the agreement or the two parties jointly sign a termination document; if the two parties are only presumed by the regulator to be concert parties based on their marital status, the presumed basis for the concert party relationship will disappear only after the divorce judgment of the court takes effect and the spousal status ceases. Even if the divorce judgment takes effect, if the two parties sign additional cooperation agreements related to voting rights and equity disposal, the concert party relationship may still be recognized by the regulator as continuing.
In the short term, it is feared that there will be no conclusion in this lawsuit. Zhang Jian introduced that a preliminary judgment shows that the case involves huge equity division and evaluation, and the ordinary procedure is applicable. The complex property evaluation period is not legally included in the trial time limit, so the actual waiting time for the judgment may be longer than six months. According to Article 152 of the *Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China*, cases tried by the people's courts in accordance with the ordinary procedure shall be concluded within six months from the date of filing. If an extension is needed under special circumstances, it can be extended for six months with the approval of the president of the court, and if further extension is required, it shall be reported to the people's court at a higher level for approval.
02
The trust crisis is difficult to eliminate
A bigger variable lies in Broad Ocean Motor's ongoing Hong Kong stock IPO. In September 2025, Broad Ocean Motor submitted an H-share listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As of March this year, the relevant prospectus had expired, but Broad Ocean Motor did not give up its plan to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In a Q&A on the Hudongyi platform on June 26, 2026, an investor asked whether the company would restart its Hong Kong stock listing application after the application materials expired. Broad Ocean Motor replied that for the progress of the listing, please pay attention to the relevant announcements.
On July 8, *Jiemian News* called Broad Ocean Motor in the name of an investor. A relevant staff member said that the divorce case of the company's actual controller may affect the Hong Kong stock IPO process, and the company is still making a comprehensive judgment at present.
From the close of trading on December 31, 2025, to July 7, 2026, the stock price of Broad Ocean Motor fell from 10.90 yuan per share to 8.29 yuan per share, with a cumulative decline of 23.94% since the beginning of this year. The announcement of the actual controller's divorce lawsuit intensified market concerns, and the stock price hit the limit down on July 8, further amplifying the pullback.
On the evening of July 7, Broad Ocean Motor simultaneously released another announcement: Liu Ziwen, director and executive vice president of the company, Liu Bo, director and vice president, and Wu Xiaoyun, vice president and financial controller, announced the early termination of their previous share reduction plans and promised not to reduce their holdings of the company's shares within six months from the date of the announcement. Although the three gave the reason that based on their confidence in the company's future development and recognition of the company's value, combined with comprehensive consideration of factors such as the current market environment, the "emergency brake" on the share reduction by Broad Ocean Motor's senior executives looks more like a move to convey confidence.
The above three originally planned to reduce their holdings by a total of no more than 667,000 shares through centralized bidding from June 15 to September 14, that is, 0.0271% of the total share capital. As of the date of the announcement, none of the three had reduced their holdings of the company's shares.
However, the *Time Weekly* reporter found that if we go back to December 2025, shortly after the Hong Kong stock IPO application was submitted, Liu Bo, Liu Ziwen, and Wu Xiaoyun had completed a round of share reductions in a concentrated manner. Liu Bo reduced his holdings by a total of 230,000 shares, Liu Ziwen by a total of 349,900 shares, and Wu Xiaoyun by a total of 300,000 shares. Calculated based on the average share reduction price of 11.05 to 11.06 yuan per share, the three senior executives reduced their holdings by a total of 879,900 shares in this round, with a total cash-out amount of 9.7268 million yuan.
△ Source: Broad Ocean Motor's announcement on the completion of the share reduction plans of the company's directors and senior management
The eagerness of Broad Ocean Motor's announcement to distance itself from "disguised share reduction" further exposes the A-share market's concerns about "sky-high divorce".
Since 2023, "divorce-style share reduction" in the A-share market has repeatedly become the focus of the market. Some major shareholders of listed companies divide their shares through divorce, so that the shareholding ratio of one party drops below 5%, thus evading the information disclosure and proportion restrictions on share reduction, and essentially completing the cashing out by "breaking the whole into parts". This phenomenon has attracted close attention from the regulatory authorities. In May 2024, the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued the *Interim Measures for the Administration of Share Reduction by Shareholders of Listed Companies*, known in the industry as "the strictest share reduction regulation in history", which further clarified that after the division of shares by directors, supervisors and senior executives due to divorce, all parties shall continue to abide by the original share reduction restrictions, and comprehensively regulate various "fancy" share reductions such as technical divorce share reduction.
Regulatory rules have closed the loopholes of technical share reduction, but the market still generally has a skeptical attitude. Once an actual controller gets divorced, the first reaction of investors is still: is it a real divorce or a "technical divorce"?
In addition, Lu Mingyang, the son of Lu Chuping and Peng Hui, born in 1994, joined Broad Ocean Motor at the end of 2019. He is currently the director of the Market Development and Customer Care Department of Broad Ocean Motor and was appointed as an executive director in September 2025. The growth path of this "second-generation successor" and the final direction of equity ownership are also worthy of continuous attention.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Time Weekly" (ID: timeweekly), written by Yuan Jiawei and Zhao Peng, edited by Wang Ying, and published with authorization from 36Kr.