Click to read the original article for details. On the evening of June 26, Taiwan's food and beverage giant Uni-President experienced a leadership change. The term of the original general manager, Hou Jung-lung, ended, and he was succeeded by current vice general manager Huang Chao-kai and Li Ching-tien, assistant manager of the dairy division, effective immediately. This is the first time in Uni-President's 52-year history that it has established a co-general manager system. According to Uni-President, the establishment of the co-general manager system is due to the needs of its Asian strategic layout. The division of responsibilities for the two general managers is: Li Ching-tien will oversee overseas markets, and Huang Chao-kai will oversee the Taiwan market, both reporting to Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer Lo Chih-hsien. Uni-President stated that to fully launch the Asian operations strategic development blueprint and look toward the Asian market, it will build an Asian north-south lifestyle brand service axis, supplemented by four major strategic pillars: production and R&D, retail experience, international trade, and alliance and M&A. New co-general managers Huang Chao-kai (left) and Li Ching-tien. Image source: Taiwan's Economic Daily News. From this perspective, this personnel change can be seen as an adjustment made due to business development needs. However, this change has attracted widespread attention, with the most important reason being the departure of Hou Jung-lung. Hou has been with the Uni-President Group for 26 years, having served as manager of the Guangzhou branch, deputy general manager of Zhuhai Kirin Uni-President Beer, general manager of Beijing Uni-President Beverages, and HR director and head of the marketing planning office at Uni-President China Holdings. In 2011, he was promoted to general manager of Uni-President China Holdings. In 2016, Uni-President also underwent a senior management change when Chairman Lo Chih-hsien announced he would relinquish his concurrent role as general manager, and Hou Jung-lung, general manager of Uni-President China (Investment) Co., Ltd., took over as general manager of the Uni-President Group. Three years later, Uni-President made another senior management change, this time with the 55-year-old Hou stepping down. Left: Lo Chih-hsien; right: Hou Jung-lung. As early as June 18, at the Uni-President shareholders' meeting, Lo Chih-hsien and Hou Jung-lung attended together, but just a week later, it was announced that Hou's term had ended, which inevitably raised questions. Uni-President stated that Hou's departure was due to the completion of a phased mission and that he would be assigned other duties, but did not disclose where Hou would go next. During Hou Jung-lung's tenure as general manager of Uni-President China Holdings, he introduced a premiumization strategy for instant noodles and beverages, which improved the gross margins of Uni-President's instant noodles and beverages. Notably, during his tenure, the two hit beverage brands "Xiaoming Classmate" and "Sea Words" were launched. However, Lo Chih-hsien was not optimistic about "Xiaoming Classmate" and "Sea Words." He once said that these two brands were not national beverages, and as he predicted, these two beverage brands lost their luster within two years. Additionally, sources said that during Hou's previous tenure as general manager of Uni-President China Holdings, there were controversies over sales and inventory control, leading to issues with "poor blood circulation" and discrepancies between reported performance and actual sales. In fact, Hou was promoted to general manager of Uni-President due to his achievements in mainland China, but it seems that management issues in mainland China laid the groundwork for subsequent changes. In previous senior management changes at Uni-President, Lo Chih-hsien explained that the Uni-President Group's inherent destiny is not to be in just one industry. Therefore, in personnel allocation, employees must be given opportunities to engage in different industries and gain different experiences to prepare for unexpected needs. He believed that if someone is transferred after serving in a position for a considerable time, it is not frequent. Lo described Uni-President's personnel changes as "just at a certain point in time, a group of people of similar age all happen to face a certain point in time," so the outside world perceives it as "a group of people moving." But in fact, this is normal rotation within the group. Today, Uni-President's stock price was not affected by this event. Uni-President China, listed in Hong Kong, closed up 4.38%, while Uni-President closed up 0.74%. In 2018, Uni-President achieved operating revenue of NT$431.478 billion (approximately RMB 95 billion), a year-on-year increase of 7.9%, setting a new historical high in over 50 years. Currently, Uni-President mainly has business segments including food and beverages, distribution and retail, and packaging containers. In the familiar food and beverage segment, Uni-President China Holdings performed well. In March 2019, Uni-President China (00220) released its 2018 annual results. According to the financial report, the Uni-President Group's revenue last year was RMB 21.772 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.6%. Gross profit was RMB 7.289 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.82%. In terms of business, in 2018, instant noodle business revenue increased by 5.7%, and beverage business revenue increased by 3.6%, reaching RMB 8.425 billion and RMB 12.619 billion respectively, accounting for 38.7% and 58.0% of the group's total revenue. In May 2019, Uni-President China Holdings released its first-quarter report. As of the end of March, after-tax profit for the first quarter was RMB 380 million, a year-on-year increase of 48%, far exceeding market expectations. Uni-President started in the flour industry and has been around for over 50 years since its establishment in 1967, developing into a "super warship" covering food, grains and oils, distribution, trade, cosmetics, packaging, logistics, investment, and other businesses. Together with more than 5,000 7-Eleven stores on the streets, Uni-President and President Chain Store Corporation, the two major food entities, have joined forces to become the two huge and sturdy pillars supporting the Uni-President Group.