Over a span of five years, the share price of Yihai Kerry Arawana Holdings Co.,Ltd. (ASX: 300999) has plummeted by 80% from its previous peak, hitting a new all-time low of 23.62 yuan per share, with its market capitalization retreating to around 130 billion yuan.
How did this once highly sought-after "consumer staple star" fall from grace to become a stock seemingly abandoned by capital?
Market Value Plummets Over Five-Year Period
In January 2021, fueled by frenzied trading with exceptionally high turnover and daily transaction volumes often exceeding tens of billions, the stock price of Yihai Kerry Arawana Holdings Co.,Ltd., which had been listed for less than four months, surged to 144.9 yuan per share.
This represented a more than fourfold increase from its IPO price of 25.7 yuan, pushing its total market cap close to 785.6 billion yuan and making it the second-largest company by market value on the ChiNext board after Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited.
At its peak, the company's market value was 28 times that of its Singapore-listed parent company, Wilmar International.
The stock's meteoric rise also allowed IPO strategic investors to book paper profits exceeding 10 billion yuan within just a few months.
However, the frenzy for the new listing and its brief reign as a "crown jewel" among consumer stocks were short-lived, as the share price embarked on a prolonged downtrend that has lasted for five years.
As of June 22, 2026, the stock price touched a new post-listing low of 23.62 yuan intraday, representing an 83.7% decline from its peak and a market value loss of nearly 650 billion yuan.
Erosion of Profitability as Core Driver
The primary reason for the stock's prolonged weakness has been a consistent deterioration in profitability.
In its listing year of 2020, the company's non-GAAP net profit reached a high of 8.792 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year growth rate of 96.36%.
From 2021 to 2024, the growth rates for this metric were -43.17%, -36.27%, -58.50%, and -26.42%, respectively.
In 2024, the company reported revenue of 238.279 billion yuan, but its non-GAAP net profit was only 972 million yuan, a figure only higher than pre-2017 levels.
Turning to the 2025 financial report, the company achieved revenue of 245.126 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.62%, and net profit attributable to shareholders of 3.153 billion yuan, up 26.01%.
Within this, the kitchen food business segment generated revenue of 150.98 billion yuan, up 3.95%, with average selling prices declining by 0.9% year-on-year, driven by lower prices for raw materials like soybeans.
During the reporting period, the feed ingredients and oils & fats technology business segment achieved revenue of 92.4 billion yuan, an increase of 1.28%, with average selling prices down 5.9% year-on-year due to lower global soybean prices following a bumper harvest in South America.
Concurrently, as a consumer blue-chip, its dividend payout ratio has been significantly lower than other major consumer companies.
In 2020, when net profit attributable to shareholders was 6 billion yuan, the cash dividend was 602 million yuan.
In recent years, the dividend level has gradually increased. In 2025, the cash dividend was 1.247 billion yuan, representing 39.55% of that year's net profit attributable to shareholders of 3.153 billion yuan, marking the highest payout ratio since its listing.
When both growth prospects and dividend-paying ability fail to meet investor expectations, capital begins to vote with its feet.
Capital Exodus Evident
Examining changes in the shareholder structure from financial reports reveals a wavering of conviction among early investors who entered at low prices, showing signs of profitable筹码 exchanging hands with later investors sitting on paper losses, while fresh incremental capital remains absent.
In hindsight, the strategic investor and the company's third-largest shareholder at the time, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC PRIVATE LIMITED, demonstrated the most acute sense of timing.
Initially holding 21.159 million shares, its holdings were worth over 3 billion yuan at the stock's peak.
Starting in the first quarter of 2021, GIC began reducing its position and had exited the list of top ten shareholders by the first quarter of 2024.
Furthermore, five years ago, during the heyday of consumer stock investing, the portfolio moves of star fund managers favoring blue-chips drew significant attention.
One such figure is Lin Yuan, known for his "value investing" approach, whose several funds collectively invested in the stock soon after its IPO.
By the third quarter of 2021, four of Lin Yuan's products held a combined nearly 4.46 million shares.
When the Q3 2021 results were released, showing a net profit of 711 million yuan, down 65.86% year-on-year, and a quarterly gross profit margin plunging to 3.23% from the previous range of 9.99%-13.66%, the业绩滑坡 triggered a chain reaction of negative feedback.
By the end of 2021, the stock price had already fallen more than 50% from its peak.
The faith in value investing struggled against the stock's downtrend, and the 2021 annual report showed that Lin Yuan's four products had all disappeared from the list of top ten流通 shareholders, though the extent of any reduction is not fully clear.
Similarly, other IPO strategic investors also executed减持, cashing out billions of yuan in total.
The employee strategic配售 plan exited the top ten shareholder list in Q1 2024, while Yonghui Superstores and the equity investment fund "Hengqin Wumei" under Wumart Superstores, both channel sales partners, exited the list in Q3 2022 and Q2 2023, respectively.
Zooming in on the recent timeline, the patience of investors including northbound capital, public funds, and individual大户 has also been worn thin by the stock's poor performance.
Northbound capital holdings decreased from 37.3752 million shares at the end of Q1 2024 to 9.3426 million shares by the end of Q1 2026, with the holding proportion dropping by 5 percentage points.
By the end of Q1 2026, public fund holdings fell to 25.7347 million shares from 64.3823 million shares at the end of Q4 2025, with the corresponding holding ratio decreasing from 11.86% to 4.74%.
Looking at a long-term believer, individual investor Liu Dapeng, who invested in 2021 and continued adding to his position until Q4 2024, held as many as 12.47 million shares by the end of 2025.
After waiting for four years, he significantly reduced his holding by 3.25 million shares in Q1 2026.
Searching for New Growth Engines
Information shows the company's business covers the entire agricultural product industry chain, including soybeans, rice, and wheat.
As a grain and oils group with annual revenue exceeding 200 billion yuan, pursuing超 high profit growth is显然 not the norm, leading the company to seek new growth avenues.
In the global grain and oils trading market, the first tier includes COFCO, Sinograin, Wilmar International (the controlling shareholder of Yihai Kerry), Cargill, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus Company, and ADM (a 22% shareholder in Wilmar).
The distinction for COFCO and Yihai Kerry (Wilmar) compared to others is that Wilmar possesses brands and channels.
The two leaders in the Asian market are COFCO and Yihai Kerry, with the domestic second tier including Luhua, Daodaoquan, etc.
In terms of vegetable oil溢价, both Luhua peanut oil and Arawana blended oil hold溢价 advantages.
It is understood that Yihai Kerry had equity ties with Luhua Group and several COFCO subsidiaries in earlier years.
In 2023, Luhua Group reported revenue of 18.629 billion yuan and net profit of 2.736 billion yuan, while Yihai Kerry reported revenue of 251.524 billion yuan and net profit of 2.785 billion yuan during the same period, clearly showing Luhua's peanut oil commands higher溢价 power.
In December 2024, Yihai Kerry, together with a related party (a joint venture 51% owned by Wilmar International and 49% by COFCO Group) Hong Kong Jiayin, acquired a stake in Luhua Group via a share swap valued at 5.569 billion yuan.
Upon completion, Yihai Kerry holds a 10.9536% stake in Luhua Group, and Hong Kong Jiayin holds 15.6864%. Such equity cooperation is aimed at bolstering the company's盈利水平.
To avoid over-reliance on the grain and oils business, the company is expanding its business scope to find new growth points.
In recent years, it has begun building a Chinese food industrialization platform centered on staple grain foods.
Its prepared dishes business employs both self-operation and merchant recruitment models to drive the development of its central kitchen operations, aiming to build a second growth curve.
Within the prepared dishes business, cold chain logistics costs can account for 20-25% of sales value.
In response, in 2025, the company invested billions of yuan to acquire 23 logistics, supply chain, and wharf companies, including Shanghai Kunshan Wuhan Yijia Logistics, to establish its own supply chain system.
In the health and wellness market, it has launched a series of functional new products under the "Arawana Wilmar Hall" brand, such as diacylglycerol oil, low-GI blended grain powder, and plant sterol protein milk, alongside central kitchen products and functional condiments.
Simultaneously, the company is also streamlining its operations. At the beginning of 2026, it transferred its 50% equity in "Kellogg's Shanghai" and "Kellogg's Kunshan" to "Mars China" for a total consideration of 60 million US dollars, divesting non-core baking and breakfast food assets related to its main business to recoup cash.
Although the persistently declining stock price reflects market concerns about the company's revenue growth potential, several securities firms have pointed out in research reports that there is room for structural upgrades within Yihai Kerry's grain and oils segment.
Furthermore, businesses such as central kitchen food may contribute new growth momentum.
Comments