---
title: "A Generation of Supermarket Kings, Renrenle Officially Delisted"
description: "On the evening of July 3, Renrenle (002336.SZ) announced its delisting from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, effective July 4, 2025, after four consecutive years of losses and insolvency. The company, once hailed as the 'first private supermarket stock,' failed to reverse its decline and will now be delisted, marking the end of an era for the retail giant."
author: "零售荆言"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-07-14"
categories: "Capital, Earnings & M&A, Retail Formats"
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citation: "零售荆言. “A Generation of Supermarket Kings, Renrenle Officially Delisted.” New Distribution, 2025-07-14. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/a-generation-of-supermarket-kings-renrenle-officially-delisted-7e29fabf/"
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---

# A Generation of Supermarket Kings, Renrenle Officially Delisted

> On the evening of July 3, Renrenle (002336.SZ) announced its delisting from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, effective July 4, 2025, after four consecutive years of losses and insolvency. The company, once hailed as the 'first private supermarket stock,' failed to reverse its decline and will now be delisted, marking the end of an era for the retail giant.

On the evening of July 3, Renrenle (002336.SZ) issued an announcement regarding the termination of listing and delisting of its shares. The announcement stated that the company's shares had been determined by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to be delisted, and the shares entered the delisting adjustment period on June 13, 2025. After fifteen trading days in the adjustment period, the last trading day was July 3, 2025, and the shares will be delisted on July 4, 2025.

At the same time, the company plans to appoint Kaiyuan Securities Co., Ltd. as its lead broker, and will sign the "Entrusted Stock Transfer Agreement" as soon as possible, entrusting it to provide share transfer services, handle the company's share exit registration in the securities market registration and settlement system, and handle matters such as share re-confirmation and share registration and settlement in the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ).

With this, Renrenle (002336.SZ), known as the "first private supermarket stock," has finally failed to reverse its decline after four consecutive years of losses and insolvency, ending in a dismal delisting. This veteran retail enterprise, which carries countless memories, has now closed its curtain on the capital market stage. Even if the stock code that once belonged to Renrenle is re-listed in the future, the struggle, glory, and decline of Renrenle will gradually fade with time and be forgotten by most. However, the memories left for the employees who devoted themselves to Renrenle and the suppliers who were ruthlessly harmed by Renrenle may never be relieved in their lifetime.

If the delisting of Renrenle was a capital maneuver that failed to become the last straw to save its listing, then Renrenle's continuous huge losses as a famous supermarket chain are the fundamental reason for its demise.

**Born in Adversity, Dying in Adversity: A Ten-Billion-Yuan Enterprise**

The early days of Renrenle's entrepreneurship can be described as being born in adversity.

Going back to 1996, He Jinming founded Renrenle in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, with the first store, Nanyou Renrenle, opening with daily sales stable at around 60,000 yuan. However, soon after, French retailer Carrefour opened a new store just 2.5 kilometers away from Nanyou Renrenle. Within a week of Carrefour's opening, Renrenle's sales plummeted from 60,000 to 20,000 yuan per day.

Facing fierce competition from Carrefour, He Jinming personally went to Carrefour for market research, even renting a table at a nearby rice noodle shop to record his observations. After 37 days of store-watching research, he compiled 400 pages of notes.

Through continuous learning and strategic adjustments, after a year and a half of effort, Nanyou Renrenle's performance achieved astonishing growth, with daily sales rising from 20,000 to 600,000 yuan, while Carrefour's performance directly halved. This achievement broke the myth that Carrefour had no competitors within a 3-kilometer radius wherever it went.

However, Renrenle's competitors were far more than just Carrefour. Soon after, Walmart opened its largest and most modern store in Asia just 150 meters away from Renrenle.

In the first week of Walmart's opening, Renrenle successfully competed with Walmart through strategies such as price cuts and rapid renovation, even causing Carrefour to close its store. Two months after Walmart's opening, Renrenle decided to close for expansion. Ten days before closing, they launched a full-scale price attack on Walmart, forcing Walmart to respond by adjusting prices on all items. However, on the tenth day, when Renrenle announced its closure for renovation, Walmart was caught off guard.

As a result, Walmart had to gradually adjust prices back, suffering heavy losses. He Jinming cleverly compressed the usual 3-4 month renovation time to just 21 days for Nanyou Renrenle, and this sudden reopening strategy caught Walmart off guard, while extensive local publicity added to the success. Li Chengjie, former operations director of Walmart China, admitted: "In China, only Renrenle can compete head-on with Walmart and continue to develop."

Through repeated hard-fought battles with various strong competitors, Renrenle grew and expanded with the indomitable spirit of a cockroach, also forging its own steel-like resilience. After establishing a foothold in Shenzhen with its "hypermarket + regional deep cultivation" model, it set its sights on the national market.

By 2010, Renrenle welcomed another highlight moment, successfully listing on the A-share market. At the time of listing, its stores covered more than 10 provinces and cities, with annual revenue exceeding 11.3 billion yuan, making it the undisputed first private supermarket stock. Founder He Jinming also achieved the business myth of becoming the richest person in Jiangxi Province. It was a time of great glory in the retail industry.

After successful listing, Renrenle seemed to be injected with a stimulant, embarking on an aggressive expansion path. After listing in 2010, founder He Jinming proposed a "five-year, 10,000-store plan," opening stores frantically in the northwest and southwest, with 23 stores in Xi'an alone, but the average gross margin of Xi'an stores was 15% lower than that of Shenzhen. In 2011, Renrenle's net profit fell by 28.52%. In 2014, the northwest region lost 320 million yuan, forcing the closure of 18 stores. During expansion, they borrowed money to build roads and logistics parks, burning cash recklessly. By 2015, debt exceeded 5 billion yuan, with interest costs enough to open two new stores.

From 2011 to 2016, in just a few years, the number of new stores increased by as many as 87. However, rapid expansion did not bring the expected high growth; instead, it plunged Renrenle into trouble. Revenue growth plummeted from an initial 30.5% to -11.7%, inventory turnover days continued to rise, and cash flow was negative for four consecutive years.

Subsequently, Renrenle experienced six consecutive years of declining revenue. In 2016, the company's stock was given a special treatment (ST) designation. In September 2016, Renrenle sold the Changsha Tianjiao Fudi property for 436 million yuan, contributing 135 million yuan in net profit to the listed company, thereby escaping the delisting dilemma.

But the good times did not last long. In 2017 and 2018, Renrenle's performance fell into losses again. In 2018, the company's net profit was a loss of 355 million yuan. Due to two consecutive years of negative net profit, the company's stock abbreviation was changed to "ST Renle." Renrenle was on the verge of delisting. Since 2016, Renrenle had fallen into a frustrating vicious cycle of "loss - asset sale - removal of ST - loss again."

By 2024, Renrenle sold 13 subsidiary stores at a shocking "cabbage price" of 13 yuan, and also sold its logistics center. Although these operations ultimately achieved a book profit of 410 million yuan, after deducting non-recurring gains and losses, the actual loss exceeded 500 million yuan.

As of the end of 2024, Renrenle's accounts payable reached 1.27 billion yuan, an increase of 89% from 2019. The number of stores had shrunk to just 32, a reduction of over 90% from its peak. During the year, it closed 45 stores and transferred 15. The 2024 financial report showed that Renrenle's net assets at the end of the period were -404 million yuan. The audit firm issued a "disclaimer of opinion" on the financial report, and the internal control report was "adverse," directly triggering the delisting red line.

Some in the industry say: Renrenle was a fighter that grew in adversity and perished in the confusion of traditional retail transformation. In fact, the key to Renrenle's failure lies in its loose corporate governance and crude, outdated business model.

**The Fortress Breached by Family-Style Management**

1. Extensive Development Sowed the Seeds of Disaster

Renrenle rose during the "golden period" of the hypermarket model in the domestic market, relying on the consumption explosion and commercial real estate expansion during China's early urbanization. Its core profit model was "real estate + joint operation," which involved leasing locations at low prices, attracting high-rent merchants for prime locations (rent covering total costs), outsourcing difficult-to-manage categories like fresh produce to joint operations, while charging suppliers entry fees, shelf fees, and extending payment periods, and transferring labor costs.

This model formed a distorted ecosystem of "high pricing - high fees" in an era of scarce channels. However, the extensive model that overly relied on store count growth gradually exposed its drawbacks with the rise of e-commerce—serious product homogenization, low operational efficiency, and difficulty in meeting the demands of consumption upgrades.

2. Strategic Short-Sightedness Wasted Resources

Renrenle attempted to seek breakthroughs through diversified business formats, successively trying Le super premium supermarkets, membership stores, community fresh food, and other formats. However, this diversification strategy was not well-thought-out or fully prepared; it merely blindly followed market hotspots, severely dispersing resources and failing to form an effective core competitiveness.

Due to a lack of clear strategic positioning and long-term stable development planning, it consumed a large amount of resources in constant trial and error, yet never found a suitable development path.

3. Family-Style Management Created a Distorted Culture

In 2010, after Renrenle went public, apart from 25% public shareholding, the remaining 75% of equity was controlled by Chairman He Jinming and his wife Song Qi, the latter serving as vice chairman. One year after listing, a large number of senior executives left, including CEO Li Yanfeng and procurement director Wang Niuzai. Subsequently, Li Kuansen, vice president of the supermarket business division, left, and in 2014, Vice President Zeng Fanhong and CFO Liao Zhiyong also left one after another.

A former senior executive who left Renrenle revealed that although Renrenle had not promised equity incentives to senior executives before listing, after listing, a large number of senior executives believed their value was not materially recognized and left. The departure of these veterans, who had Walmart experience and accompanied Renrenle to its peak, shook the foundation of Renrenle's operations.

After CEO Li Yanfeng resigned, Song Qi's younger brother Song Tao became the executive president of Renrenle's supermarket business division. The changed core management team was mostly composed of He family members, with the He family highly centralized in power, and the annual salaries of core executives far exceeding those of other management levels.

In 2011, He Jinming and Song Qi each earned 1.32 million yuan, while then Executive Vice President and CFO Cai Huiming also received a high salary of 915,000 yuan. This practice of keeping benefits within the family fostered factionalism and infighting, with internal friction running through the entire operation and management process.

Corruption further extended this distorted corporate culture, with subordinates following suit. Even grassroots employees in stores dared to openly solicit benefits from suppliers, because to get promoted, one needed to offer tributes, and with protection from above, one could do anything without fear. In Renrenle's interpersonal interactions, who you followed or which system or store you came from mattered far more than actual work ability. The dregs of Chinese culture were fully displayed in Renrenle.

4. Lack of Management Led to Huge Losses

In a performance correction announcement on the evening of January 28, 2015, Renrenle self-disclosed that in January 2015, its finance department discovered that the Qian'an Shopping Plaza under the Tianjin branch had a financial staff member who used their position to misappropriate company property. The case was reported to the Qian'an Public Security Bureau in Hebei Province and accepted. Preliminary statistics from Renrenle's finance department estimated a loss of approximately 35 million yuan.

This case was just one exposed incident, illustrating the lax management at Renrenle. Additionally, transactions between a liquor distribution company established by He family members and Renrenle were also pushed onto hot searches. The various losses in Renrenle's logistics warehouses and store warehouses remained high.

A former store manager at Renrenle bluntly stated that even as a store manager, he could not control some abnormal losses, and had to force suppliers to compensate for losses, even using technical means to control inventory losses. Suppliers, after bearing high fees of about 20% at the procurement end and various unplanned expenses, also had to bear store losses and other costs.

As the saying goes, "You can't get wool from a sheep without shearing it." These costs were ultimately added to product prices. As e-commerce platforms eliminated price information asymmetry, it was inevitable that customers gradually drifted away from Renrenle.

Many experts believe that Renrenle's delisting is not surprising, and its years of poor performance are the result of multiple factors. In addition to subjective factors such as corporate governance capabilities and senior management changes, external impacts from e-commerce and emerging business formats are also important factors. Renrenle's delisting has once again pushed the operational difficulties of hypermarkets into the spotlight.

**Hypermarkets Still Deep in Trouble**

Renrenle's predicament is not an isolated case. Data shows that in 2024, at least 782 supermarket stores closed nationwide. RT-Mart, once a major player in the retail industry, fell into a continuous decline after reaching a peak revenue of 124.3 billion yuan in 2021. It accumulated losses of 2.2 billion yuan and closed 100 stores. In 2024, it was sold off by Alibaba at a loss, its former glory dimming, facing enormous transformation pressure.

Yonghui Superstores, once a hundred-billion-yuan enterprise, also did not escape. From 2021 to 2024, it accumulated losses of nearly 10 billion yuan. After MINISO took over, in an attempt to seek breakthroughs, it was forced to learn from the Pangdonglai model and adjust its stores. However, with 300 stores closed and 200 Pangdonglai-style renovations, the transformation path is full of pain, and the first quarter of 2025 performance remains unoptimistic. The results still need further observation. In the fierce market competition, Yonghui Superstores is struggling to find a new development path.

Carrefour China's situation is even more difficult. By the end of 2024, it had only 4 stores left. On June 19, 2025, ST Yigu (002024), through its wholly-owned subsidiary Suning International's holding subsidiary, sold 100% equity in Ningbo Carrefour Commercial Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Carrefour Supermarket Co., Ltd., Zhuzhou Carrefour Commercial Co., Ltd., and Shenyang Carrefour Commercial Co., Ltd. at a price of 1 yuan each, with a total sale amount of 4 yuan. It is possible that Carrefour will completely exit the market in 2025. This brand, once an important player in China's retail market, is now on the verge of collapse.

On June 18, the China Chain Store & Franchise Association announced the 2024 China Chain Top 100 enterprises. Among 23 supermarket companies, 12 saw year-on-year sales growth, and 6 achieved growth in both sales and store count, showing signs of improvement. The remaining 11 companies are still mired in difficulties, with insufficient single-store operating capabilities, facing problems such as high costs, thin profits, and customer loss. In this retail war, a slight misstep could push them out of the top 100.

Ten companies achieved double-digit growth in both sales and store count: Hema, Mingming Henmang, Wanchen Biology, 7-Eleven, Costco, Shizu, Biyoute, Kudong, Xinguo Technology, and Laolinju. These 10 companies stood out in the past year. For traditional hypermarkets, transformation is a long and arduous task.

**Conclusion**

Delisting is just the end of Renrenle's sad story on the A-share market. As of the end of 2024, Renrenle still had 31 stores in operation, and the remaining issues are still real. The survival of existing stores, severance costs for employees of closed stores, various debts to suppliers, and the redemption of customer shopping cards are all issues that the operators need to properly address.

For consumers, the disappearance of Renrenle may just be a symbol in memory; but for the industry, Renrenle's lesson tells later comers: When the times abandon you, they don't even say goodbye. In this era where consumers vote with their phones, sticking to old ways is a dead end. Any enterprise that tries to solve new problems with old methods will be abandoned.

In the next decade, the key words for the retail industry will no longer be scale or store networks, but "efficiency and innovation"—this is both a challenge and an opportunity for all survivors. What we can do is remember this lesson and look forward to the next spring of the retail industry.

**🔺


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 零售荆言
- Published: 2025-07-14
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/a-generation-of-supermarket-kings-renrenle-officially-delisted-7e29fabf/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rtSOKQwF3n2vOxlH9VrcDA

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