Chinese media, including Sohu.com, has reported that Chinese instant messaging company Tencent has recently published an internal announcement with information about its plans to restructure its South China sales department and it has appointed Dao Feng as director for its South China sales department.

The restructuring is Tencent's first move after its three advertising sales staff were found violating sales guidelines of the company.

In addition to the new appointment of Dao, Wu Jieru will hold a concurrent post as vice director for South China channel and support the management of advertisement sales-related work in South China. Xiao Feng, formerly in charge of the South China sales department of Tencent, has been removed from the position.

At the beginning of December 2008, rumors on the Internet said something bad happened to the South China sales department of Tencent. In response to the rumors, Tencent said on December 12 that the company did find three advertisement sales staff had irregular activities that violated the sales discipline of the company and the three persons had been suspended for internal examinations. Tencent emphasized that this was an ordinary internal examination for a company. No further words about the "irregular activities" have been mentioned.

Recently, rumors rose again, saying that employees of Tencent had been arrested by police. However, Tencent cleared the rumor by saying no one in the company had been arrested.