Centurium Capital Tightens Grip on Luckin Coffee With Major Share Consolidation

Centurium Capital locked in majority voting control of Luckin Coffee through a two-part share consolidation that saw the Beijing-based private equity firm acquire 383,425,748 Class A ordinary shares through a consortium purchase while separately completing an internal consolidation of approximately 136.2 million Class B shares. The transactions cement Centurium's position as Luckin's controlling shareholder, holding more than 50% of the company's voting interest despite owning just 23.28% of its equity.

The consortium behind the Class A purchase included IDG Capital, Ares SSG Capital Management, and SA Stone Investment Advisors Inc., an SEC-registered investment advisor and wholly owned subsidiary of SGI. Luckin's Board of Directors and joint provisional liquidators signed off on the secondary sale, stating that they "have determined the Secondary Sale to be in the long-term best interest of the Company, and accordingly approved the transaction."

The divergence between Centurium's equity stake and its voting power tells the real story of the deal's structure. KrASIA reported that Centurium controls 53.6% of voting rights while holding only 23.28% of equity, a split consistent with Luckin's dual-class share architecture, where Class B shares carry heavier voting weight than Class A shares. Centurium's grip on Class B shares is what drives that outsized control.

Centurium founder David Li has been running point on Luckin's direction since April 2025, when he became the company's chairman. His involvement goes well beyond the boardroom. At an end-of-year 2025 ceremony in Chengdu celebrating Luckin surpassing 1,000 stores in that city alone, Li attended alongside CEO Guo Jinyi. A Luckin employee at the event noted that "the bosses are hands-on and very present on the frontlines."

Luckin itself has become a machine of scale. The company added 8,708 net new stores in 2025, finishing the year with 31,048 locations globally and reporting revenue of approximately $7.03 billion. That growth trajectory is a long way from 2020, when Luckin agreed to pay a $180 million penalty to settle SEC charges alleging company executives conspired to fabricate more than $300 million in sales to appease investors. Centurium and its affiliated entities stepped in as the largest shareholder group in 2022, engineering the turnaround that followed.

The consolidation at Luckin runs parallel to a separate acquisition move that signals how aggressively Centurium is building out a coffee portfolio. The firm reached an agreement with Nestlé to acquire Blue Bottle Coffee's global retail store operations for less than $400 million, according to 36Kr. After that deal closes, Nestlé would retain Blue Bottle's consumer goods business, covering packaged coffee beans, instant coffee, and ready-to-drink beverages, while Centurium takes the cafes. Blue Bottle had 78 U.S. locations as of December 2025, with Nestlé's marketing materials citing more than 100 cafes across the United States and Asia combined. Nestlé originally acquired a majority stake in Blue Bottle in 2017 for approximately $425 million, valuing the brand at more than $700 million.

Centurium's path to Blue Bottle came after parallel discussions with other major chains. The firm had previously explored acquiring Starbucks China operations, but a person close to Centurium told 36Kr that the interest "depended on securing a controlling stake," a condition incompatible with Starbucks headquarters' insistence on retaining partial ownership and influence over its China business. Talks with Costa Coffee advanced further but "ultimately did not move forward," according to KrASIA. The Blue Bottle deal, if finalized, would give Centurium a premium brand positioned well above Luckin's mass-market price point, something Costa Coffee had also represented as a strategic complement.

With majority voting control now formalized and a potential Blue Bottle acquisition on the table, Centurium's coffee footprint is consolidating fast around a single controlling hand.