Metersbonwe's founder handed the firm to his daughter — she lost ¥3.2B in seven years

Zhou Chengjian founded Metersbonwe in 1993 and opened its first store in Wenzhou two years later; in 2008 he listed the company in Shenzhen as the first stock in China's casual-wear sector. At the 2011 peak the company booked ¥9.9B in revenue and ¥1.2B in net profit from more than 5,000 stores, and Zhou topped the Hurun clothing tycoon list for three straight years, with personal wealth of ¥21.6B in 2010. Then the model started to erode: in 2015 Metersbonwe posted its first annual loss, ¥432M, and its store count fell from 5,220 to 3,800.

On 20 November 2016 the board elected Zhou's 30-year-old daughter Hu Jiajia as chairman and president; Zhou resigned both roles. Hu — an Aston University marketing graduate with a Marangoni fashion-marketing master's — had spent five years in staff departments: the president's office, footwear, brand marketing and strategy. She had never run a business; a later account described her as 'helicopter-dropped' (直升机式空降) into the top job. Zhou meanwhile stayed the actual controller in a half-in, half-out arrangement he later called 'seeming to manage without managing' (似管非管).

Under Hu the company spent scarce cash on expansion. The brand was split into five style lines — NEWear, HYSTYL, Nōvachic and others — while premium line ME&CITY was pitched against Zara without the product to back it, and stores got pricey makeovers. The Youfan (有范) app burned hundreds of millions — ¥50M a season on Qi Pa Shuo alone — before it was shut down. Inventory days stretched 182 (2016) → about 290 (2020) → 346 (2022): cash sitting in clothes nobody bought. Losses compounded — over ¥2.9B in 2019–2022, ¥3.2B across her seven years — and by June 2023 just 925 stores remained.

In January 2024 Hu resigned and Zhou took back the chairmanship, running through a string of pivots: 'trend outdoor' against Arc'teryx, 'big-brand affordable alternative,' livestreams where he danced to sell clothes — drawing the verdict that the brand had 'no outdoor genes.' The 2025 result: ¥249M lost on ¥450M of revenue (−33.9%), and −¥3.46B in accumulated undistributed profit. On 20 May 2026 the board re-elected Zhou chairman and president — 'thoroughly ending the second-generation management cycle' — while a ¥600M controlling-shareholder support arrangement held the cash chain together.