Once the supermarket giant was happy for everyone, it was a mystery to stay.
Three years in a row
will be forced to delist
A few days ago, Renrenle, which was known as the "Big Three of Guangdong Supermarkets" together with China Resources Vanguard and Xinyijia Supermarket, released the 2023 annual performance report that the company will achieve operating income of 2.853 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 28.15%, a net profit loss attributable to shareholders of listed companies of about 498 million yuan, and an audited net profit of about 579 million yuan before and after deducting non-recurring gains and losses.
Previously, Renrenle's net profit attributable to the parent company in 2021 and 2022 will be 857 million yuan and 507 million yuan respectively, and the non-net profit will be 795 million yuan and 540 million yuan respectively. At the same time, the company's net assets were negative at the end of 2023.
As a result, Renrenle was put on a "delisting risk warning". After the resumption of trading on April 22, the stock abbreviation of Renrenle was changed to "*ST Renle". If Renrenle's net assets are still not positive by the end of 2024, it will be forced to delist.
As early as 2014 and 2015, Renrenle had suffered huge losses for two consecutive years, with losses of 461 million and 475 million yuan respectively, so it entered the ST state in 2016.
In order to protect itself, Renrenle chose to sell the property of Changsha Tianjiao Fudi for 436 million yuan in September 2016. This transaction contributed a net profit of 135 million yuan to Renrenle, accounting for 223.14% of the total net profit.
But the good times did not last long, in 2017, Renrenle fell into a loss situation again, and even lost two years in a row, in 2017 and 2018, Renrenle's net profit loss was 538 million yuan and 355 million yuan respectively.
In 2019, Renrenle shares were once again subject to delisting risk warning.
In order to keep the title of a listed company, Renrenle once again resorted to the "old trick" - selling assets.
In 2019, the net profit of 38.0448 million yuan, Renrenle generated investment income of 192 million yuan through the disposal of equity, and in 2020, the net profit of 35.3828 million yuan, the company realized investment income of 369 million yuan through the disposal of the equity of its subsidiary Xi'an Renrenle Industrial Co., Ltd., and 80.6933 million yuan through the transfer of the assets of Yonghefang project of Xi'an Renrenle Supermarket Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary.
In other words, the reason why Renrenle, who has faced delisting twice, was able to survive the crisis in danger each time was not due to the profit of its main business or the blessing of its own ability, but to forcibly "continue its life" by selling assets.
Now, Renrenle, who has lost money for three consecutive years, may face the fate of delisting again, which is already its "three palaces".
The glorious past of "Little Wal-Mart".
Renrenle's name used to be a well-known existence in the retail industry.
As an early local hypermarket supermarket, Renrenle, founded in 1996, can be said to be the earliest private retail enterprise to develop across regions, and was once considered to be the most promising enterprise to become a national "supermarket boss".
Renrenle started as a fresh food supermarket, and after its initial establishment, it quickly gained a foothold in the local area by establishing a brand reputation. Then, with the honeycomb expansion strategy, it successively set up four operating regions in South China, Northwest China, Southwest China and North China, covering dozens of large and medium-sized cities, successfully realizing cross-regional chain operation and ranking among the top 100 chain stores in China.
There is also a rather "legendary" story about Renrenle, that is, the frontal toughness with foreign-funded supermarkets Carrefour and Wal-Mart.
(Source: Weibo @Carrefour China)
In 1997, Carrefour had already opened three stores in mainland China, and soon after the opening of the new store in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, the store welcomed a mystery shopper who visited every day.
This mystery shopper is He Jinming, the founder of Renrenle, after many days of visit and observation, He Jinming has sorted out more than 400 pages of Carrefour's business strategy, after knowing himself and the other, He Jinming will combine Renrenle's own characteristics with Carrefour's business advantages, and even "draw a scoop according to the gourd" into their own business, and the two sides are in full swing.
After a year and a half of hard work, Renrenle's performance soared from 20,000 to 600,000 per day, and Carrefour's performance was directly cut in half.
Carrefour also did not fall in love with the war, and chose to stop the loss in time to take the initiative to raise the "white flag", which also made Renrenle quickly famous.
In June 1999, Wal-Mart announced that it would open a 23,000-square-meter store less than 200 meters away from Renrenle. At that time, Walmart had already opened five stores in Shenzhen, compared to Renrenle, which only had one store of 6,800 square meters.
In the face of Wal-Mart's declaration of war, He Jinming quickly opened a store in Futian, Shenzhen and Huizhou, Guangdong, first cheered himself up from the momentum, Renrenle first did a week's shopping festival, so that Wal-Mart's store promotion was unfavorable, and then unexpectedly suddenly closed the store for repairs, taking advantage of Wal-Mart's loss of more than one million because of the previous follow-up, unable to parry, Renrenle raided the opening again, hit promotions and advertising, after a series of actions, Wal-Mart retreated.
won two games in a row, and in the next few years, Renrenle began to enter an explosive period.
After 2002, the total sales scale of Renrenle supermarket can maintain a growth rate of about 30% every year, and in 2010 it was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, with a revenue of more than 10 billion yuan that year, and the number of stores nationwide reached 78, with an annual growth rate of 28.1%, while Carrefour and Wal-Mart at this time had an annual growth rate of only about 20%.
Wal-Mart's former chief operating officer had to admit the strength of his opponents: "In China, the only companies that can compete with Wal-Mart and maintain development are everyone who is happy." ”
From the infinite scenery to the face of delisting
Why is everyone happy?
In the face of the impact of new retail models such as e-commerce and community group buying, Renrenle, which was once so beautiful, has also fallen into trouble, with continuous decline in performance, a sharp decline in market value, and even crumbling on the verge of delisting.
In recent years, with the rapid development of new retail formats, especially after 2020, consumer habits and patterns are changing.
In the second half of 2020, Internet giants have cut into the community group buying track, frantically conquered the city, and began to grab the business of supermarkets. Since then, the performance and stock prices of some large supermarkets, such as Jiajiayue, Hongqi Chain, RT-Mart, etc., have begun to dive.
According to the data, in 2020, among the 14 supermarket listed companies such as Sun Art Retail, Yonghui Supermarket, and Renrenle, only 3 achieved double growth in net profit and revenue, and in horizontal comparison, there were 6 in 2019 and 7 in 2018.
Everyone is happy to be delisted from the infinite scenery to the present, which may have the "tears of the times" of the outside world, but in addition to these, it also has its own problems.
When the wind of Internet retail was blowing more and more fiercely, Renrenle had the opportunity to change the track, but it still insisted on store expansion and opened 24 large supermarkets in a year. Moreover, even if there are changes, they are still on the surface, for example, Renrenle has launched a PC store and APP. However, according to the feedback of netizens who have used it, these online terminals are completely task-based development, so that there is no use experience at all, just transformation for the sake of transformation, so "Renren Tesco" has not improved, and finally failed to retain customers.
(Source: Weibo @Logistics Headlines)
Although it is embarrassing that this former hero of the industry has come to this point, it is not difficult to understand, perhaps because of the slow response in the face of e-commerce competition, or due to blind trial and error A variety of formats drag down revenue, or other factors.
Nowadays, the market has not much time left for Renrenle, and we will wait and see whether Renrenle can turn the tide in time on the verge of delisting as the previous two times, and give itself another chance.