Duolun renamed itself 'PeertoPeer' for the P2P boom — drawing China's record ¥3.47B fine

In April 2015, at actual controller Xian Yan's instruction — without a board vote — Shanghai Duolun Industrial, a maker of glazed tiles with property assets, applied to rename itself 'PeertoPeer Financial Information Services (匹凸匹)'. Announcements on 11 May billed it as aiming to be 'China's first internet-finance listed company', even though the company stated it had no financial-services business. The stock surged: consecutive limit-ups, four more after an inquiry-related halt, a record ¥25.51, and +101.09% over 21 trading days.

The rally was engineered. Per the CSRC, Xian Yan controlled 28 accounts — his own plus 14 trust plans across 28 HOMS trading units — trading Duolun on 223 of 316 days between January 2014 and June 2015, holding over 10% of the company on 60 days (peak 13.85%), pushing price and volume while timing the hype disclosures.

The reckoning came in stages. In 2017 the CSRC confiscated ¥578M of illegal gains and fined Xian Yan ¥2.892B — ¥3.47B in total, China's largest securities penalty to that date — with a lifetime market ban. In December 2020 the Shanghai High Court convicted him of market manipulation: 3 years and 4 months, a ¥10M fine and disgorgement. In September 2022 the Shanghai Financial Court awarded 13 investors ¥4.7M — the first Chinese case to pay civil securities claims out of criminal fines.

The company itself kept drifting: it dropped the P2P name, became a baijiu play as *ST Rock (上海贵酒), then in May 2026 became the first baijiu stock ever delisted from A-shares — 2025 revenue of ¥39.3M, a ¥266M loss, and its controller Han Xiao, son of the collapsed Haiyin Wealth fortune, in custody. Market value: over ¥17B at peak, under ¥500M at the end.

A stock that added 101% in 21 days collapsed; CSRC's fine alone was ¥3.47B — then a record — and the shell delisted in 2026 with its controller in custody.

The rename skipped the board and cost nothing; in a mania, a ticker that says the hot word is a pump all by itself.

Disclosure was drafted by a former lawyer to walk the line — the company admitted it had 'no financial-services business' while promising to be first in the field.

One controller held both the narrative and 28 trading accounts, so information and trades pushed the same way.

The shell survived by rebranding to the next craze — a governance vacuum that outlived the fraud until regulators finally closed it.

A name change costs nothing and can buy weeks of euphoria in a speculative market. When the story is the product, the cheapest rebrand becomes the most expensive fraud.

Xian Yan served his sentence; his criminal fines were preserved to pay investor claims first, a precedent the Shanghai Financial Court called a national first. Duolun's successors renamed the company more than ten times across 33 years, chasing every trend from internet finance to liquor. *ST Rock's 2025 accounts drew qualified audit and adverse internal-control opinions; the SSE terminated its listing on 22 May 2026, ending the 'A-share immortal bird'.