China's biggest furniture-mall landlord posted its first loss — and renamed itself twice

Easyhome opened its first store on Beijing's North Fourth Ring Road in August 1999 and grew into China's largest operator of home-furnishing malls — not selling furniture itself but collecting rent and management fees from dealers under one roof. In December 2019 it reached the exchange by backdoor-listing into Wuhan Zhongshang at a valuation of about ¥36 billion, closing with 355 malls in 29 provinces, 92 of them self-operated. The model was a leveraged bet on one input: Chinese households buying homes and furnishing them.

When property transactions stalled, the bet broke on every side at once. FY2025 GMV across the malls fell 39.1% to ¥74.4 billion. Leasing and franchise management revenue — the reason the company existed — dropped 25.75% to ¥4.434 billion, and the company had to cut its own tenants' rents to keep them from leaving, taking another 7.62 points of margin. Gross margin fell for a third straight year to 20.14%. To keep the malls full, Easyhome became a dealer itself: merchandise sales of ¥6.302 billion became the biggest revenue line — at a gross margin of just 7.18%.

The annual report of April 29, 2026 showed the first loss since listing: ¥999 million. Q4 alone lost ¥1.388 billion as ¥1.508 billion of fair-value writedowns landed on the ¥22.2 billion of investment property the company carries. Cash stood at ¥980 million against more than ¥4 billion of borrowings due within a year. The crisis had already taken the founder: Wang Linpeng died in July 2025, and a professional management team now runs the retreat — including renaming the company to a tech-flavored name in December 2024 and changing it back eight months later when it didn't work.