Former Kro Employee Speaks Out

Yesterday we noted the travails of Olaf Kristoffer "The Kro" Bauer at his own pizza restaurant - the famous Kro's Nest - over the weekend. The Global Times carried a detailed report claiming Kro was assaulted by his business partner Yuan Jie, after staff had been told Kro was no longer involved with the business. Now the former general manager of The Kro's Nest, Damjan DeNoble, has posted a long article reflecting on the situation and the breakdown in the business partners' relationship, which it seems has been a long time coming.

DeNoble's article is a long one, but features some serious allegations:

"Today Kro finds him­self in a posi­tion where he may never see a dime of the many mil­lions of ren­menbi his restau­rants have accrued over a five year period. Kro is closer to broke than kept, think­ing about mov­ing back in with his Chi­nese par­ents - his sec­ond mother and father - and his lawyers are work­ing this case pro-bono, unless any money is actu­ally recovered.

By con­trast, today Kro’s for­mer part­ner, Yuan Jie (袁捷), who always insisted that Kro had, in fact, at least three fathers, because to him, too, Kro was like a son, has ten mil­lion RMB sit­ting in a bank account. It’s a joint bank account Yuan­Jie keeps with his wife, a China Revlon exec­u­tive. It’s ten mil­lion RMB he’s not sup­posed to have, because the account­ing books his wife’s for­mer employee turned Kro’s Nest accoun­tant, Zhang Yan (张妍), kept and then showed to Kro say that this money does not exist. Those account­ing books, indeed, say that the Kro’s Nest is los­ing money, and has been for more than a year now, even though this past Novem­ber the rent on the biggest of the three Kro’s Nest restau­rants fell by more than a half, an arrange­ment that Kro nego­ti­ated with­out Yuan Jie’s help."

Of course DeNoble's musing only present one side of the story, but there seems little doubt the situation is ugly to say the least. DeNoble's full article can be read on his blog.

More details as they come to hand.

Comments

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simmi_mehra wrote:
All the expats should boycott Kro's nest so that this fuc*** Yuan will have no income. A**hol*. :W

as much as it would be sweet revenge, you gotta realize: even the western restaurants in this city don't revolve around expats anymore. In fact, this post, in which the author visits Kro's a few days after the ouster:
http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2010/05/12/Business-as-Usual-at-Kros
says:

Quote:
It appeared to be business as usual, with a big, though what appeared to be exclusively Chinese (save for one table outside), crowd of customers ... If today is anything to go by, the business no longer necessarily needs the laowai crowd to survive

I said the same thing, simmi_mehra, but the admin censored my post. I wonder how long your's will stay up.

All the expats should boycott Kro's nest so that this fuc*** Yuan will have no income. A**hol*. :W

very succinct legal opinion here:

http://www.chinalawblog.com/2010/05/steal_a_little_and_they.html

Quote:
What happened here was a bunch of oral agreements by two people who never got around to legally formalizing their relationship. And then things changed (as they always do) and the partner with greater power took the business from the "partner" with less power. In this case, the Chinese national is ending up with the business because the business is on his "turf."

Again, this sort of thing happens ALL THE TIME ALL OVER THE WORLD. Ask any lawyer who does business law about this sort of thing and then watch them roll their eyes. If they have been practicing a few years, they will almost certainly have their own emotional story to tell. If they have been practicing longer, they will probably just walk away. Too many stories to tell, none all that different. None all that surprising. And too commonplace even to get all emotional about.

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20

Beijing Boyce has more here:

http://www.beijingboyce.com/2010/05/08/as-the-kro-flies-partner-troubles-at-kros-nest-pizza/

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20