200 Billion Dragon Head Personnel Shake-up! Founder's Son Resigns as President, Successor is This Zhejiang University "Top Graduate"

On March 16, Linglong Tire (601966) announced that the board of directors recently received a written resignation letter from Wang Feng. To optimize the company’s governance structure, Wang Feng has applied to resign from his position as President. He will continue to hold other positions within the company after his resignation.

The company held the fifth meeting of the sixth board of directors, which approved the appointment of Zhou Lingkun as President.

According to his resume, Zhou Lingkun, male, born in 1974, graduated from Zhejiang University. From July 1997 to February 2026, he served as an SAP implementation consultant at Arthur Andersen, a business process design and SAP consulting advisor at IBM, general manager of the Enterprise Application Consulting Department and Global Delivery Center Director at Hewlett-Packard China, partner and head of management consulting in East China at Deloitte China, chief talent officer of management consulting, president of the Digital Business Group, partner and industry leader for the automotive sector at Deloitte China, president of the Enterprise Technology and Performance Business Group, and board member of Deloitte China.

Wang Feng is the son of Linglong Tire founder Wang Xicheng. According to public information, Wang Feng, born in 1972, joined Linglong Group’s predecessor, Yantai Tire Factory, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree. Through his continuous efforts, he gradually rose from an ordinary worker to workshop director.

In 1996, after an assessment by the organizational department, Wang Feng became deputy factory director of the factory and manager of the import and export company. According to the enterprise administrative level at that time, he became the youngest deputy section-level official in Zhaoyuan that year. At age 29, Wang Feng joined Linglong Tire, which had just completed a shareholding reform, as general manager, becoming the “young leader.”

The 2024 annual report shows that Wang Feng’s pre-tax annual salary was 2.3183 million yuan.

Public information indicates that Linglong Tire is a specialized and large-scale tire manufacturing enterprise, with products used in passenger cars, commercial vehicles, construction machinery, and more. It owns multiple brands including Linglong, ATLAS, Leo, and EVOLUXX.

Founded in 1975, Linglong Tire was originally Yantai Tire Factory, which at the time had outdated equipment and technology, capable only of tire refurbishing and patching.

After seven factory directors in 12 years, the factory was on the brink of closure. By the end of 1986, it had 108 employees and total assets of less than 500,000 yuan.

According to Shandong Business Daily, in 1987, Wang Xicheng took over as the eighth factory director of Yantai Tire Factory. At that time, he was 39 years old, having served as deputy director of Zhaoyuan County Gold Smelting Plant for two years.

Reports from Yantai media indicate that at that time, the Zhaoyuan government initially planned to convert the tire factory to produce chloroprene rubber, but Wang Xicheng insisted that with the development of the national economy, the tire industry would have significant growth. He persuaded the local government to continue tire production.

After taking office, Wang Xicheng led over a hundred employees to raise funds for building factory facilities and worked tirelessly around the clock. With the effort of a “hard worker,” they produced 92,000 sets of tires annually, achieving a output value of 6.5 million yuan and a profit of 450,000 yuan. The nearly bankrupt tire factory was revived. Four years later, the annual output value exceeded 100 million yuan. By 2000, the output value reached 1.25 billion yuan, 192 times the 1987 level.

In 2001, the former county-owned collective enterprise was restructured into a joint-stock company—Shandong Linglong Rubber Co., Ltd. That same year, Wang Xicheng’s son, Wang Feng, aged 29, was appointed General Manager of Linglong Tire. Besides building a new industrial park, Wang Feng made a key decision: to introduce a complete set of industry-leading radial tire production and inspection equipment from abroad.

Chairman Wang Feng of Linglong Tire

Entering 2000, benefiting from the rapid growth of the domestic automobile industry and strong tire exports, China’s tire industry began to recover and entered a new development phase, with industry scale continuously expanding.

Seizing this market opportunity, Linglong Tire expanded rapidly. In 2008, sales revenue surpassed 10 billion yuan. In July 2016, Linglong Tire was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The company’s Hong Kong IPO prospectus, submitted on June 30, 2025, was jointly sponsored by CITIC Securities and China Merchants Securities. As of December 30, 2025, six months after submission, the offering was invalid due to lack of further progress.

On January 23 of this year, the company announced that, considering the current macroeconomic environment, the company’s own situation, development plans, and changes in the capital market, and adhering to the principle of safeguarding shareholders’ interests and being responsible to shareholders, after in-depth discussions and careful analysis with relevant intermediaries, it decided to terminate the previously planned issuance of H-shares and listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s main board. This termination was within the scope of the board’s authority granted by the shareholders’ meeting and did not require shareholder approval.

According to Linglong Tire’s previously disclosed 2024 annual report, the actual controlling family is the Wang family, which includes Wang Xicheng, Zhang Guangying, Wang Feng, and Wang Lin. Zhang Guangying is Wang Xicheng’s wife; Wang Feng and Wang Lin are children of Wang Xicheng and Zhang Guangying; Wang Feng is the brother of Wang Lin.

According to Taishan Finance’s “Taishan List: 2025 Shandong Listed Company 300 Wealthiest,” Wang Xicheng’s family ranks fifth with a wealth of 13.15 billion yuan.

As of March 16, Linglong Tire’s stock price was 14.79 yuan, with a total market value of 21.645 billion yuan.

(This article does not constitute any investment advice. Please operate at your own risk.)

Editor: Sun Zhicheng

Sources: Public information, China Securities Journal, Shandong Business Daily, Taishan Finance