Yuyuan was profitable for 34 years — 2025 cost it ¥4.9B in one year

Yuyuan Inc, listed since 1992, is the commercial operator behind Shanghai's Yu Garden bazaar — the city's temple-market tourist core — and for three decades never posted an annual loss. Over the years the bazaar operator grew into a conglomerate: gold jewelry chains Lao Miao and Yayi with 4,615 doors at the end of 2024, property development, restaurants and food brands, watchmaking, and stakes in liquor. Jewelry was the engine — 62.5% of group revenue — but the engine ran on a commodity whose price the company does not control.

In 2025 international gold prices climbed to records and swung violently, and consumers stopped buying: jewelry revenue fell 24.16% to ¥22.734 billion as high prices choked volume. Lao Miao and Yayi closed 663 net stores in the year, ending at 3,952 — 1,042 doors gone over two years. The other pillars broke at the same time: property revenue fell 19.82% to ¥8.049 billion, and the company took ¥3.103 billion of impairments and investment losses — ¥1.462 billion of asset writedowns, ¥427 million of credit losses, ¥1.214 billion of investment losses, most of it from associates.

The annual report of March 23, 2026 showed revenue down 22.49% to ¥36.373 billion and a loss of ¥4.897 billion — the first in 34 years of listing, against a ¥125 million profit the year before. Food and culture shut 99 stores, beauty 22. Financial expenses ran ¥1.665 billion at a 71.23% debt ratio, operating cash flow fell 42% to ¥2.451 billion, and the dividend was zero. The declared response is slimming: the Jinhui liquor stake has been sold, more non-core assets are to follow, and the company is looking overseas for growth — a retreat from the conglomerate it spent two decades building.