Yao Jinbo cashed out 200 million Hong Kong dollars and is suspected of illegal shareholding reduction.

Onewo Inc., a Hong Kong-listed enterprise, revealed a case of illegal reduction of holdings by a major shareholder in its recently disclosed audited 2026 interim report.

The 58.com-affiliated entities controlled by Yao Jinbo, founder, chairman and CEO of 58.com, continuously reduced their holdings of Onewo's shares from June to July 2026 and eventually liquidated all positions, with procedural non-compliance issues existing in the transaction process.

Reporter of Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily noted that Yao Jinbo's investment dates back to 2017. At that time, the main entity of Onewo was still Vanke Property, and Dream Landing Holdings Limited under the 58.com group invested 300 million yuan for strategic shareholding, obtaining 5% of the equity. The two sides once expected the ecological synergy between the local life platform and property services.

This investment has also become one of Yao Jinbo's most successful financial investment cases in recent years. At the end of 2021, on the eve of Onewo's sprint for Hong Kong stock listing, the 58.com group first transferred about 19.958 million old shares, cashing out 1.991 billion yuan at one time. After this pre-listing transfer, its shareholding was diluted to 2.57% after IPO.

After Onewo was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2022, Yao Jinbo served as a non-executive director of Onewo, and his status was subsequently subject to relevant transaction restrictions for Hong Kong-listed company directors. Following subsequent share capital changes and a small number of share reductions, by the first half of 2026, the proportion of H shares of Onewo held by the 58.com group controlled by Yao Jinbo dropped to 1.01%, which was the last position before the two rounds of reductions this time. After nearly 9 years, from the initial share subscription to the full liquidation in 2026, the overall return of this investment is very substantial.

According to the information disclosed in Onewo's interim report, Yao Jinbo informed the company that the 58.com-affiliated entities reduced their holdings of Onewo by a total of 6.74 million shares on the exchange from June 10 to June 29, with the transaction range from HK$16.03 per share to HK$20.70 per share. The stock price also fell from the period high of HK$20.478 to HK$14.108 on June 29, with a cumulative decline of 31.11%; from July 20 to July 31, another about 5.1089 million shares were sold, with the transaction price ranging from HK$16.62 per share to HK$18.12 per share, the stock price remained relatively stable, and the total cash out was about HK$209 million.

Yao Jinbo explained to Onewo that this was "an unintentional mistake made by the management team in charge of external investment of 58 Group", and he "did not participate in or know about it", and did not hold any inside information when selling.

Compared with the data disclosed by the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited, there are deviations between the statement from Yao Jinbo's side and the actual transaction details.

From June 10 to June 29, the 58.com group continuously reduced its holdings of Onewo shares in 11 trading days, the actual average transaction price range was from HK$15.11 per share to HK$20.68 per share, and the scale of funds involved in the reduction at this stage was about HK$122 million. After two consecutive rounds of selling, all the H share positions of the relevant entities controlled by Yao Jinbo in Onewo were cleared.

The core controversy of this incident is not the shareholder's investment exit itself, but the non-compliance of the reduction transaction in terms of information declaration and lock-up period rules.

Huang Lichong, President of Winsheng International Capital, analyzed in an interview with the reporter of Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily that the two issues of "the capital behavior of shareholders selling stocks" and "whether the transaction behavior complies with regulatory rules" should be treated separately. Shareholders disposing of equity investment based on their own capital arrangements is a normal capital operation; however, directors and their related beneficial shareholdings are strictly restricted by the Hong Kong listing rules. Identity, time and procedure jointly determine whether a share reduction transaction is compliant, and the nature of the incident cannot be simply judged by the size of cash out.

Huang Lichong also compared this Onewo case with the share reduction of Haidilao's controlling shareholder system before. The relevant reduction of Haidilao was that SP NP under the controlling shareholder system sold some shares. After the transaction was disclosed, the controlling shareholder group still retained the control of the company, which did not belong to the exit of the founding team. However, Yao Jinbo's relevant shareholding in Onewo has been completely liquidated, and Onewo clearly disclosed in its interim report that this transaction has non-compliance in procedures and lock-up periods. The nature of the incident extends from a simple investment exit to the level of listed company governance.

The Hong Kong stock market has established a strict regulatory system for share trading of directors, major shareholders and their associates of listed companies. Directors and their related parties trading the company's shares usually need to perform the procedures of internal declaration and notifying the board of directors in advance; during the lock-up window period before the release of performance, relevant entities shall not conduct share transactions in principle, the purpose of which is to prevent insider information trading and maintain fairness for small and medium investors.

In Huang Lichong's view, the special feature of this Onewo case is that the listed company took the initiative to disclose the fact of non-compliant share reduction by shareholders in its audited interim report. Under normal circumstances, most listed companies will clarify transaction defects to the outside only after regulatory inquiries. The practice of active disclosure is relatively rare, which also conveys the company's emphasis on governance risks to the market.

According to the latest financial report of Onewo, the revenue in the first half of this year reached 19.11 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%, the profit for the period was 820 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.1%. The gross profit margin was 12.7%, down 1 percentage point from the same period last year. As of the close of today, the stock price closed at HK$19.26, a slight increase of 0.21%, with a market value of 22.094 billion Hong Kong dollars.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Sci-Tech Innovation Daily", author: Xu Cihao, published with authorization from 36Kr.