Bubugao's 369 stores shrank to 21 — Pang Donglai's rescue can't yet turn a profit

Bubugao was Hunan's listed retail champion — supermarkets and department stores, more than 350 doors at peak, ¥19.66 billion in 2019. Expansion outran unit economics: at its peak, only eight of its supermarkets sold ¥100M a year. E-commerce took the traffic while heavy asset investment tied up the cash. By 2022 net assets were negative and the stock wore a delisting-risk warning; 2023 revenue was ¥3.09 billion — an 84% collapse. Xiangtan's state assets took control, and a judicial restructuring ran from July 2023 to September 2024, resolving ¥20 billion of debt through swaps.

The retreat was drastic. Seventy-four stores closed in 2024 alone; the supermarket count ran 369 at peak, 59 doors of all formats by end-2024, 23 supermarkets by mid-2025, 20 by October. Bubugao withdrew completely from provinces outside Hunan. The 2024 income statement showed ¥2.879 billion of profit — but it was restructuring income booked from the debt workout, not a business recovering.

The rescue arrived on March 31, 2024: Pang Donglai's team remade the surviving stores — 78% of SKUs replaced, 460 suppliers cut, procurement costs down 15%, staff take-home pay up from ¥3,247 to ¥5,099. The 20 remodeled stores produced 19 ¥100M doors; average daily sales jumped from ¥90,000 to ¥710,000. The ST warning came off in April 2025. Yet the January 2026 forecast for full-year 2025 still showed a deducted loss of ¥126–189 million: 639 days into the turnaround, the core business remains loss-making — narrowed by ¥779 million, but not closed.