A company seeking a listing on the A-share market has its chairman earning an annual salary of 25.177 million yuan, his two brothers receiving substantial compensation, and his ex-wife holding a 9.77% stake. This raises questions about whether the firm is presenting a credible business narrative or revealing governance concerns.
LYGEND RESOURCE has submitted a prospectus to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange for a main board listing, aiming to raise approximately 4.047 billion yuan. According to public information, the latest status of its IPO was updated on March 31, 2026, changing from "under review" to "suspended" because the financial documents in its application had expired and required supplementary submission.
As a nickel full-industry-chain service provider already listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2022, LYGEND RESOURCE's return to the A-share market superficially follows a familiar expansion narrative. All fundraising projects are centered on its main business, targeting a wet slag resource utilization demonstration project and an MHP refining production project, aiming to strengthen its integrated layout in the nickel industry chain. In terms of business scale, the company is not small. From 2022 to the first half of 2025, the company achieved revenues of 18.319 billion yuan, 21.286 billion yuan, 29.846 billion yuan, and 18.497 billion yuan, respectively, with income from nickel product production consistently maintaining a high proportion. The industry chain, scale, and fundraising direction together could form a standard IPO story for a resource enterprise. However, what has truly drawn attention to LYGEND RESOURCE this time is not its business operations, but its people.
The prospectus shows that Cai Jianyong controls 51.42% of the voting rights, serving as chairman and executive director, with a pre-tax annual salary of 25.177 million yuan in 2024. This figure is striking enough, but more sensitive than the high salary is the family employment structure centered around Cai Jianyong. His two brothers, Cai Jianwei and Cai Jiansong, both serve as deputy general managers of the company. The former received a pre-tax compensation of 19.0675 million yuan in 2024, while the latter, having worked for less than a month, received 801,300 yuan. Meanwhile, Cai Jianyong's daughter also holds company shares and holds a position within the firm. With the chairman holding control, brothers in the management layer, and a daughter involved in both shareholding and employment, this goes beyond a simple description as a "family business." For a company seeking a main board listing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, what the market sees is not just the number of family members involved, but the concentration of core positions, profit distribution, and control rights within a single family framework. This is the most difficult aspect for LYGEND RESOURCE to address. The company may argue that it is a typical example of a private enterprise growing through entrepreneurship, and emphasize that the employment of relatives does not inherently imply poor governance. However, when the chairman's salary exceeds 25 million yuan, his brothers follow with high pay, and his daughter is included in the shareholding and employment system, outsiders naturally question whether the company operates under the governance logic of a modern listed entity or still bears strong traces of family management. What elevates these doubts is the involvement of Xie Wen. The prospectus indicates that Cai Jianyong's ex-wife, Xie Wen, currently holds a 9.77% stake in LYGEND RESOURCE, making her the fourth-largest shareholder. The majority of her shares came from two low-price transfers by Cai Jianyong between July and November 2024. The transfer price for both transactions was 0.00001 yuan per share, with a total value of less than 1,300 yuan, involving approximately 8.02% of the company's total pre-issuance shares. The most sensitive aspect of this arrangement is not just the near-symbolic transfer price, but its timing just before the IPO application, coupled with changes in their relationship status. When the company was listed in Hong Kong in 2022, Cai Jianyong and Xie Wen were jointly recognized as controlling shareholders. However, in this A-share IPO application, Xie Wen's status has changed to "ex-wife" and she is no longer identified as a joint actual controller. What this implies is that Cai Jianyong, as the actual controller, is subject to a 36-month share lock-up period, while Xie Wen, as a shareholder holding more than 5%, faces only a 12-month lock-up period. When divorce, low-price share transfers, the disappearance of joint actual controller status, and differences in lock-up periods coincide, it becomes difficult to interpret the situation simply as a matter of internal family asset disposal. The most challenging aspect to explain is why, for a company already listed in Hong Kong, the focus of attention in its pursuit of a main board A-share listing is not on its projects, but on Cai Jianyong, his brothers, his ex-wife, and the resulting equity and employment structure surrounding them.
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