Luckin Coffee sacks CEO, COO following accounting probe (updated)

Luckin Coffee

12/05/2020 16:24

(Adds details from release, background)
    May 12 (Reuters) - Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee Inc
 LK.O  fired its chief executive and chief operating officers
following an internal probe on fabrication of annual sales
numbers, the company said https://bit.ly/3cD4jLC in a filing on
Tuesday.
    Jinyi Guo, a board director and a senior vice president,
will take the top job on an interim basis.
    Jenny Zhiya Qian and Jian Liu, who were CEO and COO
respectively, will also leave the board. 
    Luckin, a major rival to Starbucks  SBUX.O  in China,
revealed in April that much of its 2019 sales of about 2.2
billion yuan ($310.77 million) were fabricated by its COO and
other employees, who had been suspended while the company
carried out its investigation.
    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and China's
State Administration for Market Regulation are also
investigating the company. 
    Luckin said on Tuesday it has been cooperating with and
responding to inquiries from the regulatory agencies. 

 (Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru;
Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
 ((Nivedita.Balu@thomsonreuters.com; within U.S. +1 646 223
8780; outside U.S. +91 80 6749 4822/ Twitter: @niveditabalu;))