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U.S.-Listed Chinese KOL Company Falls 9% After Flood of Class Lawsuits

By Mo Yelin / Oct 11, 2019 04:03 PM / Business & Tech

Photo: VCG

Photo: VCG

A U.S.-listed Chinese company touting itself as a facilitator for key opinion leaders (KOLs) in China saw its shares drop by 9% Thursday after being flooded with lawsuits alleging it misled investors with inaccurate statements in its IPO filing.

Ruhnn Holding closed at $5.79, less than half of its offer price of $12.50 in April when the company was listed on the Nasdaq and raised $125 million. The company has faced dozens of class lawsuits from U.S. law firms over the past month acting on behalf of investors, including at least six filed on Thursday.

Ruhnn operates online stores on third-party e-commerce platforms, mostly under the names of KOLs. The company makes money through online sales of its self-designed products, such as cosmetics and women’s clothing.

One of the suits, brought by the law firm Bernstein Liebhard, claimed an IPO prospectus Ruhnn filed to the U.S. securities regulator in April contained a series of falseshoods and omitted important facts. Ruhnn failed to mention a 40% decline in its number of online stores — and that 44% of its affiliated KOLs had departed — the lawyers said.

The company said in the same prospectus that it operated a total of 86 online stores as of March 2018, but offered no new data after that date. In June, as the company announced its financial results for the fiscal year ending in March, founder and chairman Min Feng revealed that the firm was only operating 56 online stores as of that month.

Contact reporter Mo Yelin (yelinmo@caixin.com)

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