--- title: "Yonghui Superstores' Turnaround Must Be Fought by Its Own People" description: "After a six-month global search, Yonghui Superstores has appointed 34-year-old Wang Shoucheng as CEO. Wang, a company insider with experience in the 'Pangdonglai-style' store renovations, faces the challenge of leading the company through its ongoing transformation and losses." author: "徐霁" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2025-09-30" categories: "Retail Formats" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/yonghui-superstores-turnaround-must-be-fought-by-its-own-people-0141145b/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/yonghui-superstores-turnaround-must-be-fought-by-its-own-people-0141145b.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/g89o8qSllIjvDlS3bGFTfw" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E6%B0%B8%E8%BE%89%E8%B6%85%E5%B8%82%E7%9A%84%E7%BF%BB%E8%BA%AB%E4%BB%97-%E8%BF%98%E5%BE%97%E9%9D%A0%E8%87%AA%E5%B7%B1%E4%BA%BA%E5%8E%BB%E6%89%93-0141145b.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/yonghui-superstores-turnaround-must-be-fought-by-its-own-people-0141145b/" citation: "徐霁. “Yonghui Superstores' Turnaround Must Be Fought by Its Own People.” New Distribution, 2025-09-30. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/yonghui-superstores-turnaround-must-be-fought-by-its-own-people-0141145b/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # Yonghui Superstores' Turnaround Must Be Fought by Its Own People > After a six-month global search, Yonghui Superstores has appointed 34-year-old Wang Shoucheng as CEO. Wang, a company insider with experience in the 'Pangdonglai-style' store renovations, faces the challenge of leading the company through its ongoing transformation and losses. ### **Source** | Zebra Consumption **ID** | banmaxiaofei Author | Xu Ji After a six-month global search, Yonghui Superstores finally settled on its CEO. Last Friday, 34-year-old Wang Shoucheng was appointed as the CEO of Yonghui Superstores. In 2017, after graduating with a master's degree from Peking University, Wang Shoucheng joined Yonghui as a "Rongcai" management trainee and has gained experience in multiple positions. In October last year, he was promoted to vice president and served as the head of Yonghui Superstores' project to learn from Pangdonglai's store renovation model. Since 2021, Yonghui Superstores has been deeply loss-making for four consecutive years, and continued to lose money in the first half of this year. Implementing "Pangdonglai-style" renovations on its stores remains the top priority of the company's current reform and transformation. Wang Shoucheng, an insider who has accumulated experience in the "Pangdonglai-style" renovation, may be the best candidate for the CEO position at Yonghui Superstores at present. **A "post-90s" CEO takes the helm** After a vacancy of six months, Yonghui Superstores (601933.SH) finally determined its CEO. Last Friday, the company disclosed an announcement that the board of directors unanimously passed the "Proposal on the Appointment of Senior Management Personnel," agreeing to appoint Wang Shoucheng as the company's CEO. At the shareholders' meeting held in March this year, Zhang Songfeng, then director and CEO of Yonghui Superstores, was not re-elected. At that time, the company stated that the CEO position would be recruited globally and was waiting for the right person. Subsequently, Yonghui Superstores posted the CEO recruitment information on its official website. The job requirements clearly stated that candidates need a bachelor's degree or above, with an MBA or master's degree in a related field preferred; more than 10 years of senior management experience in the retail or chain supermarket industry, with experience in senior management of listed companies preferred. After a six-month global recruitment, the young "insider" Wang Shoucheng ultimately won out. Wang Shoucheng was born in 1991 and is 34 years old this year. He holds a master's degree from Peking University. After graduating in 2017, he joined Yonghui Superstores as a "Rongcai" management trainee, and this year marks his ninth year with the company. He has served as CEO business assistant, cluster operations partner, Fujian provincial human resources partner, Fujian-Jiangxi provincial human resources director, and Shanghai provincial general manager. In October last year, he was appointed as vice president, and in May this year, he was added as a director. What the board most values about Wang Shoucheng is likely his performance in Yonghui Superstores' "Pangdonglai-style" renovation process. Last year, Yonghui Superstores announced that it would learn from the Pangdonglai model for store renovations. Wang Shoucheng served as the head of the renovation team in the project, leading the construction of the operational standard system. In March this year, Yonghui Superstores established a reform leadership group to oversee the company's reform and transformation, with Ye Guofu personally serving as the group leader and Wang Shoucheng as deputy leader. The Shanghai market, which he was once responsible for, is also the "vanguard" of Yonghui Superstores' "Pangdonglai-style" renovation. In January this year, Yonghui Superstores' stores in the Shanghai region started renovations, promoting the "Pangdonglai-style" plan in a systematic and phased manner. By September 4, the Fengxian Jinhui Longhu store officially opened, and Yonghui's urban renovation plan in Shanghai was completed as scheduled, making Shanghai the first city in the country to complete the Pangdonglai model renovation. It is understood that Yonghui's steady-state renovated stores in Shanghai that have been open for more than three months have initially achieved overall profitability. **31 billion yuan refinancing to boost "Pangdonglai-style" renovation** At an industry event in March this year, Wang Shoucheng said that 2025 is a critical year for Yonghui Superstores. It must not only firmly advance renovations but also resolutely close underperforming stores, while some stores are to be renovated and continue operations. These tasks all require financial support. Currently, Yonghui Superstores is advancing refinancing, planning to issue shares to specific targets to raise 3.114 billion yuan. The raised funds will be used for store upgrade and renovation projects, logistics and warehousing upgrade projects, and to supplement working capital or repay bank loans. Among them, the store upgrade and renovation project plans a total investment of nearly 4 billion yuan, with about 2.4 billion yuan of the raised funds invested in this project. With the rise of e-commerce channels and changes in consumption structure, the traditional supermarket industry has been greatly impacted. To survive, traditional supermarkets have to actively adapt to changes, carrying out various degrees of renovation and upgrades in terms of store decoration, product mix, and service content. Since 2024, well-known traditional supermarket brands such as Yonghui Superstores, Bubugao, China Resources Vanguard, Lianhua Supermarket, and Inzone Supermarket have launched their own renovation initiatives and achieved initial results. According to survey data from the China Chain Store & Franchise Association (CCFA) on 47 supermarket companies nationwide, three-quarters of supermarket companies have attempted renovations, and 75% of the renovated supermarket stores have seen varying degrees of sales growth. On June 19 last year, Yonghui's first "Pangdonglai-style" store, the Zhengzhou Xinwan Plaza store, reopened. After that, Yonghui Superstores accelerated the speed and intensity of learning from the Pangdonglai model for renovation and upgrades nationwide. By June 13 this year, with the opening of the Nanjing Jiangning Wanda Plaza store, Yonghui Superstores' "Pangdonglai-style" stores reached 100. According to the plan, the number of renovated stores is to be expanded to 300 before the Chinese New Year in 2026. According to the private placement plan, Yonghui Superstores will use the raised funds to carry out "Pangdonglai model" renovation and upgrades on 216 stores. The board meeting held on September 1 has reviewed and approved the plan and related matters for this private placement, which still needs to go through procedures such as shareholders' meeting approval, exchange review, and CSRC registration. **Wang Shoucheng's tough battles** Yonghui Superstores was once the "light of Chinese retail," but now it has to struggle in the industry's great changes. In 1995, "Gule Weili Supermarket" opened in Fuzhou, which was the starting point of Yonghui Superstores. Since then, founder brothers Zhang Xuansong and Zhang Xuanning, with their business acumen and the spirit of Fujian people who dare to fight and strive, gradually expanded Yonghui Superstores. At one time, Yonghui was the object of learning and imitation for the national supermarket industry. The company seized the opportunity of "agriculture-to-supermarket" reform, developed a unique skill in fresh produce, and used this to expand Yonghui Superstores from regional to national markets, becoming the absolute leader in China's supermarket industry. It was precisely because of the growth potential of Yonghui Superstores that international and domestic capital such as Dairy Farm International, Tencent, and JD.com successively invested heavily in the company. After its listing in 2010, Yonghui Superstores, leveraging its capital advantages, accelerated store expansion while investing in upstream and downstream supply chains and regional peers, once forming a huge "Yonghui system" in the capital market. However, as the company's operations fell into trouble, those capital giants who supported Yonghui Superstores with real money also had to bear huge investment losses and exit painfully. After rapidly expanding, Yonghui Superstores saw its operating revenue exceed 90 billion yuan in 2020, and then reached a turning point. Since 2021, the company has suffered severe losses for four consecutive years, with cumulative net losses attributable to shareholders exceeding 9.5 billion yuan. Since last year, the company has continued to promote "Pangdonglai-style" renovations, and the operating conditions of related stores have initially improved, but the overall performance has not yet shown obvious effects. As the reform and transformation enter a deep-water period, the company's pain has further intensified. This year, Yonghui Superstores is still carrying out renovations and store closures simultaneously. In the first half of the year, 93 stores were renovated and opened, while 227 long-term loss-making stores were closed during the same period. Affected by this, the company's operating revenue in the first half of the year decreased by 20.73% year-on-year to 29.95 billion yuan, net profit attributable to shareholders decreased by 187.38% year-on-year to a loss of 241 million yuan, and non-GAAP net profit plunged by 2786.27% to a huge loss of 802 million yuan. As the new CEO, Wang Shoucheng has the heavy responsibility of Yonghui Superstores' operations on his shoulders. For a long time to come, every battle in Yonghui Superstores' reform and transformation will be tough, and none will be easy. --- ## Citation metadata - Publisher: New Distribution - Author: 徐霁 - Published: 2025-09-30 - Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/yonghui-superstores-turnaround-must-be-fought-by-its-own-people-0141145b/ - Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/g89o8qSllIjvDlS3bGFTfw ## Copyright and AI use This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL. Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671