Missfresh Considers Selling the Equity of Smart Fresh Market Business

Missfresh, a Chinese fresh food e-commerce platform, plans to sell part of its business of providing business consulting and online shop construction services for merchants of fresh agricultural products, so as to solve one of its operational dilemmas, Bloomberg reported on July 20, citing people familiar with the matter.

According to sources, Missfresh is working with consultants to evaluate investors’ interest in its smart fresh market business. This plan started at the end of last year when Missfresh valued the department at about $100 million, exceeding the market value of the company’s US total shares of $79 million.

Missfresh was founded in 2014. Since it landed on US stock exchanges in June 2021, the market value of each company has shrunk by 97%. In April this year, Missfresh announced that it could not publish its 2021 annual report, and that it would set up an independent audit committee to conduct an internal review of some suspicious transactions. The review released this month concluded that some revenue was not accurately recorded, and some employees left their job because of this. Missfresh also faces some class action lawsuits because it may be suspected of falsifying financial data during its IPO process.

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In addition, Missfresh raised 200 million yuan ($29.6 million) from Shanxi Donghui Group last week. Shanxi Donghui is involved in energy, metals, tourism and agriculture, and will now be able to nominate two directors of Missfresh. Through this strategic cooperation, Missfresh and Shanxi Donghui will exchange their resources and best business practices around agricultural operations, sales and marketing, and carry out a series of strategic cooperation in the whole industrial chain such as brand agriculture and order agriculture.