Luckin Coffee to beat Starbucks in China after a miraculous recovery from bankruptcy and fraud controversies

Luckin Coffee Inc. launched its coffee chain business in 2017, and the brand has been well-received not just in China but in other countries as well. However, it filed for bankruptcy just seven months after it was delisted at Nasdaq in June 2020.

The Chinese coffee company and coffeehouse chain was removed from the listing after only a year of trading on the exchange. It happened following the discovery that its previous management team inflated sales figures by as much as $300 million to make it appear the company is doing very well and attract more investors.

In December 2020, Luckin Coffee paid $180 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for defrauding investors by misstating its revenues, expenses, and net operating loss. Prior to the chaos and its downfall, the brand was considered a potential rival of Starbucks Coffee.

At any rate, the company tried to get back on track and worked through its bankruptcy. It has grown rapidly since then, and in April of this year, Luckin Coffee announced it has successfully emerged from all of its bankruptcy proceedings. Many are calling this recovery “miraculous” because the brand has been in deep trouble prior to its massive turnaround.

“Today marks a new beginning for Luckin Coffee,” the company’s chairman and chief executive officer, Dr. Jinyi Guo, said in a press release at that time. “Luckin Coffee utilized the Chapter 15 process to effectuate the restructuring of its financial indebtedness in the United States and as we have emerged from this process successfully with the support of our creditors, we are confident that Luckin Coffee is well positioned for long-term growth and creation of stakeholder value.”

With the unexpected turn of events, it was predicted that it won’t be long before Luckin Coffee will really be able to overtake the coffee chain giant, Starbucks Coffee, in China. Sean Ma, a hedge fund manager that operates Snow Lake Capital alternative investment management firm, said he expects Luckin Coffee to completely beat Starbucks in the country.

Ma owns a minority stake in Luckin, and ironically, he was also the same person who accused the company of fraud in 2020. Meanwhile, QSR Magazine reported that Ma released a slide presentation and a report that support the prediction of Luckin Coffee overtaking Starbucks.

“I’m telling the world this is a good company,” he allegedly told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. “I have vetted it and I have done my homework.

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