Ruhan IPO'd as China's first KOL stock at $12.50 — it went private at $3.50

Ruhan Holdings (Ruhnn) was the agency that industrialised China's influencer economy — built around Zhang Dayi, its chief marketing officer, whose 12 million Weibo fans powered roughly half the company's sales across three years. Alibaba invested in 2016; in April 2019 Ruhnn became the first Chinese KOL company to list on Nasdaq, pricing at $12.50 per ADS.

The listed life was brutal. The company kept reporting losses, and a personal scandal around Zhang Dayi in 2020 shook confidence in the single asset the whole valuation rested on. US firms opened investigations over disclosures, while rivals like Li Jiaqi and Viya rewrote the scale of livestream selling around it. By November 2020 the shares made $2.89 — down 59% that year, less than a quarter of the IPO price.

On November 25, 2020 the founders — Feng Min, Lei Sun and Chao Shen — offered to take it private; the deal closed at $3.50 per ADS, and trading stopped on April 20, 2021. Ruhnn left Nasdaq with 180 influencers and 295 million fans on the books, Taobao China still holding 7.5% — the first stock of the influencer economy delisted two years after it rang the bell.