"Nuonuo.com" is reported to have large-scale wage arrears, employees: like a department of Aerospace Information.

Employees who frequently travel on business and need to issue invoices should be familiar with “Nono.com.” However, this company has recently fallen into trouble. Recently, the well-known enterprise financial and tax digital service provider Zhejiang Nono Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter: Nono.com) was exposed for large-scale wage arrears, affecting the company’s actual operations. Several Nono.com employees confirmed this to Caixin. An employee stated that the company has been in large-scale wage arrears since 2024, and the exact amount owed has become a muddled account.

Public information shows that Nono.com is a subsidiary of the listed company Aerospace Information (600271.SH). However, several employees said that the company is actually a product supply department similar to Aerospace Information, with Aerospace Information providing Nono.com with client sourcing solutions. But later, due to the impact of the Fourth Phase of the Golden Tax Project, Nono.com’s traditional invoicing business declined by nearly 90%, and the company’s operations gradually fell into difficulty.

Several employees indicated that senior management at Nono.com began planning to raise funds to resolve the crisis in 2023, but Aerospace Information was unwilling to allow more capital to enter, as it would dilute its major shareholder position. On the other hand, the company intended to develop new businesses by forming teams amid the shrinking of traditional operations, but after large-scale spending, no results were achieved.

Wage arrears exceeding one year, currently undergoing large-scale layoffs

Ms. Zhang (pseudonym) is a developer at Nono.com in Hangzhou. She told Caixin that as early as October 2023, the company had already experienced delayed wages. By June 2024, wage arrears had become widespread.

From June 2024 to now, the company has only sporadically issued some wages to maintain employee confidence, but the total paid is far from the total owed. Ms. Zhang estimates that Nono.com currently owes her about 160k yuan in wages.

“The specific amount of unpaid wages is hard to estimate now,” Mr. Li (pseudonym) told Caixin. “Now Nono.com no longer sends payslips to employees’ email inboxes, which makes most employees unclear about how much they should receive and how much has been paid compared to what is actually owed. I estimate it’s about 200k yuan.” Mr. Li is an employee of Nono.com’s Chengdu branch and has already left the company. He told Caixin that overall, employees stationed outside the company owe less in wages, and the main group with significant unpaid wages are employees at the Hangzhou headquarters, where wage issues have only started since last year.

It is understood that Nono.com is currently pushing for large-scale layoffs. A sales employee from Suwan area, Mr. Lin (pseudonym), told Caixin that the company had given him a resignation agreement, which stipulated that his owed wages would be paid in two installments. However, Mr. Lin refused the agreement. “This agreement doesn’t even specify the exact amount owed, and it doesn’t specify what happens if the company defaults. I can’t accept such an agreement,” Mr. Lin said to Caixin.

Around 4:00 PM on April 2, Caixin visited Nono.com’s Hangzhou headquarters and found that only a few employees were present, but most workstations were unoccupied. The weather was gloomy that day, but Nono.com’s office was not lit, making the entire office appear very dim.

“We are still employed, but it’s inconvenient to do interviews. You should ask the people going to labor arbitration,” an employee told Caixin.

Nono.com Hangzhou headquarters, Liu Yanshuang / photo

Nono.com Hangzhou headquarters, Liu Yanshuang / photo

Company’s business is closely related to Aerospace Information

Public information shows that Nono.com is a subsidiary of the listed company Aerospace Information, which holds 64.3% of Nono.com’s shares. The second-largest shareholder is Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital Co., Ltd., affiliated with Ant Group (06688.HK), holding 17.5%.

In 2017, Aerospace Information initiated the establishment of Nono.com. At that time, Aerospace Information’s shareholding ratio was as high as 78%. Aerospace Information stated that the company would rely on Nono services, Nono Financial, and Nono Mall online platforms to provide various online financial and tax services to enterprises. The company planned to leverage its existing business and customer resources to develop the new company into a leading domestic internet-based financial and tax enterprise.

In July 2020, Aerospace Information introduced Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital, an Alibaba-affiliated firm, with a total investment of up to 510 million yuan. In October 2023, Aerospace Information listed Nono.com on the property rights exchange, aiming to attract more investors and planning to raise no less than 500 million yuan.

Several employees told Caixin that when Nono.com was first established, it only had developers and operations staff, with no sales team, relying on Aerospace Information to solve client sourcing issues. Nono.com is more like a product department of Aerospace Information than a subsidiary.

Three consecutive years of continuous losses

Nono.com’s main business is invoicing, specifically traditional tax control disk operations. Before the Fourth Phase of the Golden Tax Project, every enterprise needed a tax control disk infrastructure to issue VAT invoices, and each year, companies paid maintenance fees for these disks. Most tax control disks came from two companies: BaWang Technology and Aerospace Information. Nono.com is an important part of Aerospace Information’s invoicing business. With near-monopoly advantages, Aerospace Information’s annual invoicing revenue is quite substantial.

However, with the start of the Fourth Phase of the Golden Tax Project in 2021, most companies could directly issue fully electronic invoices online through the tax bureau, bypassing the tax control disks. This made traditional tax control disk business face obsolescence. An employee of Nono.com said that after the Fourth Phase of the Golden Tax Project, the company’s revenue is expected to decline by 90%.

Data from Qichacha shows that Nono.com’s operating income was 382 million yuan in 2022, 157 million yuan in 2023, and 134 million yuan in 2024, a decline of 64.92% over three years; net profits were -160k, -162 million, and -200k yuan, showing an expanding loss trend.

According to Aerospace Information’s financial reports, the company’s revenue has been declining since 2020, reaching 8.3 billion yuan in 2024, only 24% of the high level in 2019; net profit has also decreased year after year, with a loss in 2024 for the first time.

Regarding the current predicament, has Aerospace Information provided any solutions? The interviewed employees all said there is no news. “The company executives have been saying they are negotiating with Aerospace Information, but there has been no substantive result. Employees’ patience has run out,” one employee said. According to internal rumors, the major shareholder Aerospace Information is reluctant to accept more investment because it would dilute its own equity and affect its controlling position.

On April 3, Caixin called Nono.com directors Chen Jian and Wu Peng, and also sent emails to the board secretary’s office, while contacting Aerospace Information’s securities department for details. As of press time, no reply has been received, and the above calls went unanswered.