The former wealthiest businessman in Quanzhou has been eliminated, the "Shoe King" has delisted, but still has over 9 million fans on the internet.

On the evening of March 11th, Guiren Bird announced that from February 1st to March 7th, the company's stock had closed at less than 1 yuan for 20 consecutive trading days, triggering the conditions for delisting. The Shanghai Stock Exchange has made the decision to delist the company's stock. Trading of the company's stock has been suspended since the market opened on March 8th.

The announcement also mentioned that the company received a regulatory work letter from the Shanghai Stock Exchange regarding the relevant matters of GRL Group, requiring the company to fulfill the relevant commitments regarding the incomplete shareholding increase plan of the remaining controlling shareholder and directors, and the failure of the actual controller to return a large sum of money to the company.

Furthermore, in February of this year, due to suspected violations of information disclosure laws and regulations, Li Zhihua, the actual controller and chairman of GRL Group, was investigated by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Prior to this, Wang Rongguang, who had only served as a director and vice president of GRL Group for 9 days, also received an inquiry letter from the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

GRL Group's founder Lin Tianfu was once hailed as the "richest man in Quanzhou," but now, a series of bad news continues to pour in for GRL Group.

The significant reduction of storefronts signals the "end" of GRL Group. Upon searching on a local lifestyle app, "Tianxia Net Commerce" found that there are no GRL Group stores in the main urban area of Hangzhou, with only a few street-side stores in Lin'an, Fuyang, and Tonglu. According to its 2023 interim report, as of June 30, 2023, GRL Group had 1584 retail terminals.

Contrary to its offline performance, GRL Group remains active online. "Tianxia Net Commerce" found that on e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and Douyin, the official flagship stores of GRL Group have over 9 million fans.

Taking the Tmall platform as an example, GRL Group has multiple brand flagship stores and distribution stores, with the official sports flagship store of GRL Group having 1.46 million fans, and its best-selling item being a pair of men's running shoes, which has sold 9,000 pairs. As of 3 p.m. on March 12, the clothing flagship store and children's shoe flagship store of GRL Group were still live streaming, with many user reviews stating "good value for money."

On the Pinduoduo platform, Guiren Niao has a self-operated "Trendy Shoe Flagship Store," with thousands of orders for men's running shoes priced at less than 200 yuan per pair. On the Douyin platform, Guiren Niao's children's shoe flagship store has over 2.19 million followers, with cumulative sales exceeding 2.23 million items. A pair of children's "Dad" shoes priced at 99.9 yuan has sold 140,000 pairs.

On Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), Guiren Niao's official accounts still maintain a nearly daily update frequency, posting videos and notes about new products, but user interaction is relatively low.

How did the richest man in Quanzhou fall behind?

Guiren Niao, which originally started with sports shoes, has long since fallen behind its fellow hometown competitors.

In 1987, 24-year-old Lin Tianfu started a small factory in Chendai Town, Jinjiang, Fujian, doing OEM processing for sports shoes. Also starting their businesses that year were Ding Shuibo of Xtep and Ding Shizhong of Anta.

In 2002, Guiren Niao was born and quickly captured the third- and fourth-tier cities with its cost-effective products, "sweeping" the youth in county towns. In 2014, Guiren Niao went public on the A-share market and reached a peak market value of 42.7 billion yuan in 2015, signing top celebrities like Lin Chi-ling as its spokesperson. Public information shows that Lin Tianfu became the richest man in Quanzhou in 2014 with a net worth of 19 billion yuan.

After going public, Guiren Niao expanded from sports shoes and apparel to the entire sports ecosystem through "buying, buying, buying."

In 2015, Guiren Niao became the second largest shareholder of Hupu with nearly 240 million yuan, and invested 200 million yuan in KPS Sports. In 2016, Guiren Niao obtained the exclusive operating rights of AND1 in Greater China, acquired a controlling stake in the offline retailer Jiezhixing and the online distributor Nameshoe, and through Jiezhixing, acquired 45.45% of Shengdao Sports, selling its own shoes while helping its competitors sell theirs.

In 2017, Guiren Niao once tried to acquire the chain fitness company Weikang Fitness (parent company of Welsh Fitness) with a bid of 2.7 billion yuan, with a premium rate as high as 27 times. At the same time, Guiren Niao also teamed up with Hupu to establish Dynamic Capital in 2015. In 2017, Guiren Niao's revenue reached 3.252 billion yuan, enjoying a moment of glory.

However, behind the prosperity lies numerous crises. On one hand, the main shoe business is declining, and the consumer upgrade in the third- and fourth-tier cities where the brand's main customer base is located has led to the strategic expansion of brands like Nike, Adidas, Li-Ning, and Anta. Guiren Niao lags behind in terms of attractiveness and professionalism. On the other hand, the performance of the "bought" projects is not satisfactory, and Guiren Niao's "Internet + Sports" dream has turned into a bubble.

Agriculture cannot save Guiren Niao

In 2021, Guiren Niao attempted to "save the country through a detour" by entering the agricultural industry and established a pre-fabricated vegetable company, Jinhe (Qiqihar) Pre-fabricated Vegetable Industrial Park Co., Ltd., with an investment of 100 million yuan in April of the previous year. According to enterprise information, Jinhe Pre-fabricated Vegetable is 100% controlled by Guiren Niao, with Li Zhihua as the legal representative.

In fact, Li Zhihua's entry into Guiren Niao can be traced back to 2021. At that time, due to its inability to repay debts, Guiren Niao's creditors applied to the Quanzhou Intermediate People's Court for reorganization in August 2020. In April 2021, Taifu Jinggu acquired 320 million shares of Guiren Niao for about 420 million yuan, accounting for 20.36% of the total share capital of the listed company.

At the same time, Taifu Jinggu also acquired Guiren Niao's accounts receivable with a book value of 921 million yuan through auction for 91 million yuan. After Taifu Jinggu took over Guiren Niao, the company began to act as "new farmers," adding rice processing and sales, and grain storage businesses.

Thanks to the grain business, in 2021, Guiren Niao achieved a main business income of 1.419 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.43%, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company of 360 million yuan, turning losses into profits.

In May 2022, Guiren Niao was "delisted" and changed from "ST Guiren" to "Guiren Niao." The importance of the grain business became increasingly prominent. In September of the same year, Guiren Niao announced that, due to the continued losses in the sports shoe and apparel business, it would gradually withdraw from this business and focus on the grain business as its main development direction. However, the good times did not last long, and Guiren Niao's net profit attributable to the parent company turned into a loss again at -9.4137 million yuan in 2022. On April 28, 2023, Guiren Niao, which had briefly been "delisted," was once again delisted.

The semi-annual report for 2023 shows that the company achieved operating income of 715 million yuan, an increase of 9.73% compared to the same period last year. The net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company was a loss of 18.1446 million yuan, and the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was a loss of 29.226 million yuan, slightly larger than the same period last year. Looking at the split business, during the reporting period, the revenue of the GRN sports shoe and apparel business was 230 million yuan, and the revenue of the grain trade business was 340 million yuan. The grain business has taken the lead, but the new business has not been able to drive sustained profitability for GRN.

From the GRN official website, the main visual image has been changed to a scene of "running in the field wearing running shoes." Perhaps GRN once hoped to revitalize the company through a dual-line model of "selling grain with the left hand and selling shoes with the right hand."

The semi-annual report of 2023 shows that the gross profit margins of sportswear and commercial and agency operations are 25.77% and 29.84% respectively, while the gross profit margin of the food business of GRIFFIN is only 10.86%. Comparatively, the gross profit margin of footwear and clothing is higher.

The "King of Shoes" returns, and the "King of Shoes" steps down.

Observations from "Tianxia Net Commerce" have found that in recent years, there have been continuous news about the "King of Shoes" (generally referring to a leading position in a certain footwear category). Most of them are footwear brands established in the 1980s and 1990s, which once had impressive performance. However, with the changes in consumer personalities and market competition, "how to befriend consumers again" has become a problem that the "Kings of Shoes" have to consider.

On March 1st, Belle International Fashion Group (hereinafter referred to as "Belle International") once again submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In 2017, Belle International was privatized and delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This time, Belle International submitted the prospectus under the name of Belle International Fashion Group, marking its re-entry into the capital market after the failure of its submission to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2022.

According to Frost & Sullivan data, in terms of retail sales, Belle International Fashion Group has held the top position in the Chinese fashion footwear market for over a decade, with a market share of 12.3% in 2022.

Belle International was once crowned with the title "King of Shoes," but it also encountered difficulties. Starting from 2012, its net profit could only achieve single-digit growth. After reaching a historical high in February 2013, Belle International's stock price has been declining.

Public reports show that Zhang Lei, the founder of Hillhouse Capital, believes that the directly operated stores, previously considered as stumbling blocks for transformation, have become Belle's advantage. If the daily store traffic is quantified with the concept of the internet, it has a very high DAU (daily active users). After privatization, Hillhouse also took a series of measures to optimize operations and improve output for Belle's footwear business, such as repositioning several brands, optimizing brand portfolio, and emphasizing brand differentiation. In 2018, Belle acquired a controlling stake in 73Hours footwear business, a luxury women's footwear brand targeting white-collar women aged 25 to 35.

From the prospectus, Belle International Fashion Group has achieved impressive results: for the nine months ending on November 30, 2023, the net profit margin reached 12.8%, the highest level during the performance record period; the online revenue of footwear and clothing has increased significantly from less than 7% for the year ending on February 28, 2017, to 28% for the nine months ending on November 30, 2023.

Other companies, such as the former "Queen of Women's Shoes" Saturday "abandoning shoes" to transform into "light assets" through the acquisition of Yowant Network for live streaming e-commerce; the veteran women's shoe brand Qianbaodu is attempting diversified transformation through acquisitions, but now faces a 96% market value plunge and the risk of delisting; ANTA also faced negative growth in performance, but through the acquisition and layout of a multi-brand matrix, achieved a revenue of 53.651 billion yuan in the 2022 fiscal year, surpassing Nike in China, becoming the new generation "King of Shoes" in the Chinese market...

On one side is the "return of the king" Belle, and on the other side is GRIFFIN, which is about to be delisted. Some are happy, and some are worried.

At 6:15 pm on March 12th, in the passionate live broadcast of GRIFFIN's official flagship store on Douyin, a barrage of comments appeared: "The brand of shoes I've been buying for years is about to be delisted, feeling a bit sad," but the low double-digit online audience made the live broadcast room somewhat desolate.

The old story has come to an end, and the new "Shoe King" story has begun.