The "58 Group" sold shares worth HK$200 million in violation of regulations. Yao Jinbo, founder of 58.com, made money from ONEWO but failed to exit gracefully.
ONEWO (2602.HK) recently released its 2026 interim report. The report reveals that Dream Landing Holdings Limited, controlled by ONEWO non-executive director Yao Jinbo, sold approximately 11.85 million H-shares of ONEWO in two rounds between June and July this year, reducing his stake from 1.01% to zero. Based on public transaction data, the two rounds of reductions totaled approximately HK$209 million (approximately RMB 178 million) in proceeds.
Thus, this investment that began in 2017 has now been completely exited after nine years. Notably, the final payoff of this impressive investment was explicitly identified by ONEWO as a violation because the director failed to follow the declaration procedures for share trading by directors, and part of the transactions occurred during the blackout period before earnings release. ONEWO has reported the incident to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (HKEX), which may take disciplinary action against those responsible under the Listing Rules. Additionally, this violation has negatively affected Yao Jinbo's reputation as a listed company director.
Following HKEX practice, after receiving a disclosure from the listed company, it will assess whether to launch an investigation. Whether the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission gets involved depends on whether insider trading, market manipulation, or other activities violating the Securities and Futures Ordinance are suspected.
As the "58 Group" gradually exits external investments such as ONEWO and Homelink, Yao Jinbo's capital map is also changing. Six years after 58.com's delisting, the listing plans for Anjuke and Tiandao Homemaking have not yet materialized, and GOGOX continues to incur losses. Meanwhile, Yao Jinbo and his wife spent RMB 662 million to acquire a controlling stake in an A-share pharmaceutical company, and through Shenqi Capital, they have extended their investment scope to new energy, advanced manufacturing, and embodied intelligence. Selling ONEWO shares is just one step in Yao Jinbo's repositioning of his chips.
ONEWO disclosed two rounds of share reductions. The first round occurred between June 10 and June 29, 2026. Dream Landing, controlled by Yao Jinbo, sold 6.74 million H-shares of ONEWO through on-market transactions at prices ranging from HK$16.03 to HK$20.70 per share. As a result, Yao Jinbo's deemed beneficial ownership decreased from 1.01% to 0.44%. The problem with this round of transactions is that Yao Jinbo failed to provide written notice to ONEWO before the reduction, as required under Rule B.8 of Appendix C3 of the HKEX Listing Rules.
The second round occurred between July 20 and July 31, during which Dream Landing sold the remaining 5.11 million shares at prices ranging from HK$16.62 to HK$18.12 per share. After these transactions, the "58 Group's" stake in ONEWO was officially reduced to zero. This time, in addition to failing to provide prior written notice, the transactions also fell within ONEWO's earnings blackout period. According to ONEWO's interim report, the blackout period for the company's 2026 interim results ran from July 14 to August 13. Dream Landing's share sales from July 20 to July 31 fell within this window.
Why did the violation responsibility fall on Yao Jinbo when it was the "58 Group's" holding vehicle that sold the shares? The reason is that Dream Landing is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dream Warrior Inc., which is in turn an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of 58.com Inc., ultimately controlled by Yao Jinbo. As a non-executive director of ONEWO, Yao Jinbo is deemed by law to have an interest in the ONEWO shares held by Dream Landing, and the relevant buying and selling activities must comply with the securities trading code for directors of listed companies.
Regarding the cause of the violation, Yao Jinbo explained that the transactions were an "inadvertent mistake" by the management team responsible for external investments at 58.com, not a deliberate violation. He stated that he was not personally involved and had no knowledge of the reduction plan, nor did he possess any inside information about ONEWO at the time of the transactions. Afterward, Yao Jinbo said he re-studied ONEWO's code of conduct on director securities trading, arranged for his team to receive training on listing rules, regulatory compliance, and corporate governance, and improved internal reporting, approval, and internal control procedures.
This procedural oversight left an imperfect ending to a nine-year investment. In 2017, 58.com subscribed to 5% of Vanke Property's equity through Dream Landing for RMB 300 million. According to ONEWO's prospectus, Dream Landing initially subscribed for 33.25 million shares, which became 50 million shares after Vanke Property was restructured into a joint-stock company.
At the time, this transaction was not merely a financial investment. 58.com possessed online traffic in real estate, housekeeping, recruitment, and second-hand trading, while Vanke Property controlled numerous community and household service scenarios. Both parties envisioned linking 58.com's service platform with Vanke Property's community entry points to create synergies in housekeeping, repairs, second-hand trading, and other areas.
Four years later, this investment saw its first major monetization. In December 2021, Dream Landing transferred 19.96 million ONEWO shares to Hainan Yunsheng for RMB 1.991 billion in USD-equivalent consideration. The consideration for this single transfer alone was approximately 6.64 times the original RMB 300 million investment cost. After this transaction, the "58 Group" not only recovered its entire principal but also continued to hold 30.04 million shares.
In September 2022, ONEWO listed on the HKEX, and Dream Landing's stake was diluted to approximately 2.57%. In April 2024, Dream Landing sold another 18.19 million shares, reducing its holding to 11.85 million shares, or approximately 1%. According to reports, based on ONEWO's share price at the time, which fluctuated roughly between HK$18 and HK$25 per share, and using a conservative estimate of HK$18, this round of reductions raised approximately HK$320 million (approximately RMB 273 million) or more.
By 2026, the remaining shares were cleared in two rounds, with the final transactions raising approximately HK$209 million (approximately RMB 178 million). Combining these three rounds of reductions, the "58 Group" invested in ONEWO for nine years, cashing out a total of over RMB 2.442 billion. At this point, the "58 Group" no longer holds any ONEWO shares. However, ONEWO's 2026 interim report shows that Yao Jinbo still serves as a non-executive director of the company.
The bet on ONEWO represents one of the most successful investments in the "58 Group's" industrial investment portfolio. Yao Jinbo was born in 1976 in Yiyang, Hunan Province, and graduated from Ocean University of China. He co-founded TAL Education before establishing 58.com in 2005, which grew from local life information services like apartment rentals, recruitment, second-hand trading, and local services, and was listed on the NYSE in 2013. Afterward, 58.com entered an aggressive acquisition phase. In 2015, 58.com acquired Anjuke and merged with Ganji.com. Subsequently, its investment scope expanded to cover real estate, housekeeping, logistics, automotive, second-hand trading, and recruitment, forming a life services ecosystem centered around 58.com.
Structurally, the "58 Group's" capital map can be roughly divided into three layers. The innermost layer consists of traffic and information platforms like 58.com, Anjuke, and Ganji.com. The second layer comprises vertical companies incubated or spun off from within the group, including Tiandao Homemaking, GOGOX, and Zhuanzhuan. The outermost layer includes strategic equity investments in companies like ONEWO and Homelink, as well as startups funded by Shenqi Capital.
This expansion model once made 58.com an "capital octopus" in the life services sector, extending its tentacles into almost every business related to urban residents. However, as mobile internet traffic dividends gradually faded, the problem of an overly complex business portfolio emerged. In 2020, Yao Jinbo formed a buyer consortium with Warburg Pincus, General Atlantic, and Ocean Link to take 58.com private at a valuation of approximately US$8.7 billion. The transaction was funded through a combination of equity and debt financing. Seven years after its listing, 58.com delisted from the NYSE.
After privatization, the "58 Group" planned to spin off and list its different vertical businesses. In April 2021, Anjuke submitted a prospectus to the HKEX, but its application lapsed six months later. Although Anjuke responded at the time that the listing process was still ongoing, it has never formally returned to the capital markets. In July of the same year, housekeeping services platform Tiandao Homemaking submitted a prospectus to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with plans to list on the NYSE, but suspended the IPO shortly after filing.
The one that successfully listed was GOGOX. In June 2022, GOGOX listed on the HKEX, becoming the first vertical platform from the 58 Group to achieve an independent listing after privatization. However, according to GOGOX's 2025 annual report, the company generated revenue of RMB 671 million that year, up 1.6% year-on-year, with a shareholder-attributable loss of approximately RMB 161 million, narrowing from RMB 193 million the previous year, but still far from profitability.
Beyond ONEWO, similar external investments include Homelink. In 2018, 58.com's subsidiary Wuba Co., Ltd. invested RMB 1.068 billion to acquire 8.28% of Homelink, becoming a significant shareholder. Yao Jinbo emphasized at the time that 58.com, Anjuke, Ganji.com, and Homelink were complementary in the real estate services chain. However, Wuba Co., Ltd. subsequently began reducing its stake. Homelink's 2023 simplified equity change report shows that Wuba Co., Ltd.'s stake had been reduced to 5% due to dividend distributions and active reductions.
From ONEWO to Homelink, the "58 Group's" equity investments in external real estate service companies are gradually contracting, although Anjuke remains one of its core businesses. The changes are more evident at the capital level: rather than maintaining numerous external minority stakes simultaneously, the 58 Group has begun to recover some chips, concentrating funds and attention on platforms it controls and new industrial directions.
While gradually exiting ONEWO, Yao Jinbo has also been seeking a new fulcrum in listed companies. In May 2025, Beijing Fuhao, controlled by Yao Jinbo and his wife Dai Keying, signed a share transfer agreement with Gao Fan, the original actual controller of Yimin Pharmaceutical (002826.SZ), to acquire 43.86 million shares at RMB 15.10 per share, representing 23% of the listed company's total shares, for a total transaction price of approximately RMB 662 million. In August 2025, the share transfer was completed, making Beijing Fuhao the controlling shareholder of Yimin Pharmaceutical and Yao Jinbo the actual controller of the listed company.
There is no obvious upstream or downstream relationship between pharmaceuticals and 58.com's original businesses in real estate, recruitment, housekeeping, and local life services. Yimin Pharmaceutical primarily focuses on drugs for diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and gynecological conditions, with core products including miglitol tablets and Hongjin Xiaojie tablets. To maintain business stability, the original actual controller Gao Fan made operational commitments in the transaction agreement: provided that Beijing Fuhao guarantees the independent operation of the original business segments, Yimin Pharmaceutical's annual revenue must not be lower than RMB 600 million and net profit attributable to shareholders must not be lower than RMB 30 million from 2025 to 2027.
This means that although Yao Jinbo has obtained control of the listed company, the original pharmaceutical team will continue to bear operational responsibilities for a period of time. Based on the latest performance, Yimin Pharmaceutical has temporarily delivered a relatively fast-growing financial report. In the first half of 2026, the company achieved revenue of RMB 360 million, up 15.47% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 66.68 million, up 77.54% year-on-year.
The direction of Yao Jinbo's investment portfolio has indeed changed. Shenqi Capital, established under 58.com in 2018, initially focused its early investments on life services, enterprise services, and consumer internet sectors, closely aligned with 58.com's business ecosystem. In recent years, its investment scope has gradually expanded into hard technology sectors such as new energy, advanced manufacturing, and robotics. Public information shows that Shenqi Capital has invested in exoskeleton robotics company MaiBao Intelligent, robotic dexterous hand company INR-Time Robot, as well as several companies in photovoltaic, new energy, and industrial intelligence fields. In 2025, Shenqi Capital also led a nearly RMB 100 million B3 round of financing for INR-Time Robot.
From minority equity investments in ONEWO to the controlling stake acquisition in Yimin Pharmaceutical, and then to Shenqi Capital's investments in robotics, new energy, and advanced manufacturing, Yao Jinbo's capital methods are evolving. Today, ONEWO has been fully exited, Yimin Pharmaceutical has just been acquired, and Shenqi Capital continues to seek new industrial opportunities. Six years after 58.com's delisting, Yao Jinbo's capital story is far from over; the stage has simply shifted from life services internet to A-share listed companies and hard technology investments.
Yuan Shuai, co-founding initiator of the Xinzhiao New Quality Productivity Meeting Lounge, believes that the transformation of the "58 Group's" investment logic represents a complete transition of a generation of internet industry participants from "traffic expansion" thinking to "industrial deep cultivation" thinking. This shift corresponds precisely to the broader trend of China's economy moving from the high-speed expansion phase driven by the internet to a deep upgrade of the real economy. The dividend that could be quickly leveraged through online traffic is narrowing, and future opportunities lie in scenarios where online and offline are deeply integrated and technology is closely bound to real industries. Yao Jinbo's series of moves are essentially re-anchoring the capital, experience, and team capabilities accumulated during the internet era onto the main track of a new round of industrial upgrading, completing the transformation from platform entrepreneur to long-term industrial investor.
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