Kristy Carr and Dennis Lin spent the first few days of April in China’s Pearl River Delta, where they held a string of events to reward the top infant formula sellers and develop relationships with key distributors.

Far from Australia in the industrial city of Dongguan, neither Carr, Bubs Australia’s chief executive, nor Lin, the executive chairman, knew that their time with the company would abruptly come to an end within days. And much of the animosity that had accumulated between the pair and the remaining board members was centred on how the company was faring in China – the biggest formula market in the world.