According to a board change announcement released by ES Services (ASX: 01995) on September 24, Mr. Lin Zhong has formally resigned as chairman of the board and executive director of ES Services. Following his resignation, Mr. Lin Zhong will no longer participate in the daily operations of ES Services and will only provide strategic advice and support for the company's sustained and stable development in the capacity of senior strategic advisor. The board also announced that the company's current executive director and president, Mr. Lin Zhubo, will succeed as chairman of the board, Mr. Liu Guohong has been appointed as an executive director, and Mr. Ge Ming has been appointed as a non-executive director.
Founder Passes the Baton as Lin Zhong Devotes Himself Fully to CIFI's Debt Restructuring and Transformation
A person familiar with the matter told reporters that simultaneously serving as chairman of the board of both CIFI Holdings Group (ASX: 00884) and ES Services had placed increasing work pressure on Lin Zhong, who is already 58 years old. The core purpose of this resignation from the property management company is to devote more energy and time to CIFI Holdings Group's debt restructuring and strategic transformation, with the goal of thoroughly resolving the debt problems at the listed company level.
The weight of this statement can only be truly understood in the context of Lin Zhong's experiences over the past four years. Since CIFI Holdings Group launched its offshore debt restructuring in November 2022, Lin Zhong has frequently shuttled between Shanghai and Hong Kong, personally meeting creditors face to face, communicating repeatedly, seeking understanding, and continuously advancing the debt restructuring process. It is precisely this resilient commitment that enabled CIFI Holdings Group to complete the voting on its onshore debt restructuring plan and the effectiveness of its offshore restructuring plan by the end of 2025, making it one of the few private real estate enterprises to have completed both onshore and offshore restructurings. However, just half a year after the offshore restructuring plan took effect, CIFI Holdings Group was unable to pay the second cash installment due in June 2026 due to slower-than-expected progress on the sale of a London property, and had to initiate an optimization of its offshore debt restructuring plan.
It may be precisely under these circumstances that Lin Zhong ultimately made up his mind. He chose to resign as chairman of the board of ES Services, stepping back from the specific affairs of ES Services, to invest his limited time and energy into the most critical and most difficult aspects of CIFI Holdings Group's overall transformation: on one hand, advancing the implementation of the optimized offshore restructuring plan; on the other hand, opening up space for CIFI Holdings Group's long-term transformation. Debt restructuring and transformation — one concerns the bottom line of survival, the other determines the path of development — neither allows for any slackening, and the latter clearly requires far more investment and patience.
Professional Manager Takes Over as ES Services Completes Its Governance Transformation
With the post-80s generation Lin Zhubo succeeding as chairman of the board, ES Services has completed the transition from "founder" to "professional manager." This change also represents another step forward in ES Services' corporate governance following LMR's shareholding. Lin Zhubo has served as president and executive director of ES Services since September 2025. Transitioning from real estate to property management, his first step was to dive into the front lines. Within just half a year of taking office, he conducted on-site research at approximately 50 projects and completed full-coverage discussions with regional and city managers.
In addition, he led the revision of ES Services' "Second Five-Year Strategy" and presided over the completion of the 2026 annual business plan and resource allocation. He emphasized that property management is an operations-driven organization that requires "farmer-style" meticulous cultivation, pursuing compound growth, and relying on the continuous accumulation of customer base, satisfaction, and penetration rates. "Thinking clearly and going far is far better than acting quickly." This approach was validated in the 2026 interim results. In the first half of the year, ES Services achieved revenue of 3.61 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 215 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.6%, achieving steady growth amid industry pressure.
Under Lin Zhubo's leadership, ES Services has been making efforts on both the "expansion" and "management" fronts simultaneously, orderly exiting projects of poor quality and continuously optimizing its revenue structure; on the business management side, it has been advancing lean management to improve efficiency and effectiveness. After more than a year in office, Lin Zhubo has won high recognition from the board and shareholders through his actions and performance, making his promotion to chairman of the board a natural progression.
The promotion of another post-80s generation figure, Liu Guohong, reflects ES Services' strong emphasis on operations. It is understood that Liu Guohong is a veteran. He joined the property management industry in 2003. Before joining ES Services, he had worked at Vanke Property, Shenzhen Huaye Property, and Longfor Property, growing from project manager all the way to operations director, and served as general manager of the listed company Lingyue Property from 2017 to 2019. At ES Services, Liu Guohong was responsible for the western and northern branch companies, and since September 2025 has served as head of ES Services' newly established Grand Operations Center.
A person familiar with the matter said that over the past year, he has firmly advanced ES Services' lean management, promoting operational quality and efficiency improvements through human-machine collaboration, multi-post integration, and process reengineering.
Ge Ming's Return: A Clear Signal of CIFI's Asset-Light Transformation
The announcement also declared the appointment of Mr. Ge Ming as a non-executive director of ES Services. In fact, he is not a new face parachuted in — when ES Services was listed in 2018, Ge Ming served as a non-executive director of the company until he stepped down in early 2020. At that time, his role was vice president of CIFI Holdings Group and general manager of the Human Resources Development Center, and he was the core builder of CIFI Holdings Group's human resources system during its leap from ten billion to one hundred billion in scale.
Now, returning to the ES Services board after six years, his role has quietly changed. According to a person familiar with the matter, Ge Ming returned to CIFI Holdings Group in July this year to devote himself to assisting Lin Zhong in promoting multi-business synergy and asset-light strategic transformation. Currently, CIFI Holdings Group has built an asset-light matrix consisting of construction management, property management, leasing, commercial operations, and asset management, with each business line having the ability to run independently while forming a closely coordinated chain. As the only independently listed mature segment in this matrix, ES Services is most appropriately served by Ge Ming as a non-executive director. He possesses extensive experience in human resources management and corporate strategy implementation, which will provide strong support for ES Services in responding to current industry challenges and will also further advance the implementation of CIFI Holdings Group's overall asset-light transformation strategy.
For ES Services, founder Lin Zhong's transition is not merely an adjustment in the allocation of his energy — it is essentially driving ES Services to complete a transformation from a "family business" to an "institutionalized enterprise." With post-80s managers like Lin Zhubo and Liu Guohong stepping to the forefront, and Ge Ming returning as a non-executive director to provide guidance, the path of succession between old and new and professional division of labor has become clear.
2026 marks the opening year of the "15th Five-Year Plan," and "improving property service quality" has been incorporated into national strategic-level coordinated advancement. Under this favorable policy environment, ES Services welcomes a brand-new, younger, and more dynamic senior management team. What kind of future this young team will lead ES Services toward is worth anticipating.