Wan Hongwei's first "report card" after taking over: Shuanghui Development's revenue declines, profit recovers, with the main businesses of meat products and slaughter deeply in a period of adjustment

(Source: Xiaocai Girl Tribe)

Image source: Visual China

Blue Whale News, March 25th (Reporter Dai Ziting) — In the first full fiscal year after Wan Hongwei took over as Chairman, Henan Shuanghui Investment Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Shuanghui Development,” 000895.SZ) delivered a report card of “profit recovery and revenue pressure.”

On the evening of March 24th, Shuanghui Development disclosed its 2025 annual report. During the reporting period, the company achieved operating revenue of 5.11B yuan, down 0.48% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 2.77B yuan, up 2.32% year-on-year. The company plans to distribute a cash dividend of 8 yuan (tax included) for every 10 shares to all shareholders, totaling approximately 73.94B yuan, continuing its consistent high dividend tradition since listing.

From the financial performance, Shuanghui Development continued the characteristic of “profit growth without revenue growth” in 2025. Against the backdrop of declines in its two core businesses—meat products and slaughtering—other business revenues increased by 21.12% year-on-year, becoming the only growth segment. Meanwhile, the company’s simultaneous promotion of channel specialization reform and new channel expansion is gradually offsetting the downward pressure on traditional businesses.

That evening, the company also announced plans to use no more than 6 billion yuan of idle funds for investment and financial management, further improving capital utilization efficiency.

Revenue declines for five consecutive years, profit recovering amid fluctuations

Blue Whale News reporter noted that since reaching a peak of 5.11B yuan in 2020, Shuanghui Development’s revenue has declined for five consecutive years. From 2021 to 2025, the company’s revenue decreased by 9.72%, 6.16%, 4.29%, 0.56%, and 0.48% respectively year-on-year. Correspondingly, net profit attributable to the parent company fluctuated around 5 billion yuan, with 2025 recording 23.53B yuan, a slight increase of 2.32% over the previous year.

Looking at the business structure, both major pillar industries are under pressure. In 2025, the meat products sector achieved revenue of 12.06B yuan, down 5.09% year-on-year, with gross profit margin increasing by 1.38 percentage points to 37.05%; the slaughtering sector achieved revenue of 29.25 billion yuan, down 3.57% year-on-year, with gross profit margin slightly up 0.36 percentage points to 4.94%. These two businesses together account for about 88% of the company’s revenue, and their decline directly dragged down overall revenue performance.

Behind this decline is a deep adjustment in the pork market in 2025. According to monitoring data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the average nationwide live pig price in 2025 was 14.44 yuan per kilogram, down 9.2% year-on-year, hitting a new low since 2019. Notably, in mid-October 2025, pig prices once fell below 11 yuan per kilogram, a drop of over 40% from the peak in 2023.

Affected by this, the company’s slaughtering business experienced “volume increase, price decrease”—sales of fresh pork products increased by 15.83% year-on-year, but revenue declined by 3.57%. The meat product business was also under pressure, with demand for hot meat products slowing down. In the context of intensified industry price competition and more rational consumer behavior, the company responded to market changes through product and channel restructuring, with both sales volume and revenue under pressure.

It is worth noting that while the two main businesses declined, “other” income in the company’s revenue structure reached 8.27B yuan, a significant increase of 21.12% year-on-year, becoming a rare bright spot in the financial report. Regarding the specific composition of this income, on March 25th, a relevant staff member from Shuanghui Development’s securities department told Blue Whale News that the “other” part mainly includes poultry industry and breeding segments, with chicken and slaughtered chicken categorized under “others,” and chemical packaging and other businesses also included. The staff further stated that in 2025, the poultry industry performed relatively well overall, despite chicken prices not being very high, but driven by scale expansion and management improvements, related businesses performed better; at the same time, pig breeding also improved compared to the previous year, showing some reduction in losses.

The financial report shows that cost pressures have eased. In 2025, the cost of pig breeding decreased from 15.0 yuan per kilogram in January to 13.4 yuan per kilogram in December, with an average annual breeding cost of 14.1 yuan per kilogram, down 9.0% from 15.5 yuan in 2024.

Meanwhile, the company’s financial expenses decreased significantly by 37.33% year-on-year, mainly due to lower financing interest rates, with interest expenses dropping from 186 million yuan to 149 million yuan; inventory decreased from 5.55B yuan at the end of 2023 to 7.35B yuan at the end of 2025, significantly easing inventory pressure, which also supported profit release.

In terms of cash flow, the net cash flow from operating activities was 5.55B yuan, down 12.63% year-on-year; net cash outflow from investing activities was 4.39B yuan, an increase of 1.05B yuan year-on-year, mainly due to increased purchases of large certificates of deposit, fixed-term deposits, and other short-term investments.

Notably, the company’s net increase in cash and cash equivalents turned negative to -2.77B yuan, a decline of 134.05% year-on-year. The company’s asset-liability ratio rose from 42.80% at the end of last year to 45.32%, and short-term non-current liabilities due within one year increased from 1.7425 million yuan to 402 million yuan, indicating increased short-term debt repayment pressure.

However, Shuanghui’s tradition of high dividends continues, though the payout has become more moderate compared to previous years. In 2025, the planned cash dividend is about 5.11B yuan, corresponding to a payout ratio of approximately 54% based on net profit attributable to the parent of 2.6B yuan. While still substantial, this is less aggressive than in 2021 and 2022. In 2024, the company paid about 2.42B yuan in cash dividends; in 2023, about 4.97B yuan.

Wan Hongwei’s First Full Year Report: Professionalization Reform and Channel Restructuring

In August 2024, Wan Hongwei took over as Chairman of Shuanghui Development. This annual report is his first full-year performance report since taking office. From the disclosed information, the new management’s reform measures have already shown results on multiple levels.

The 2024 Board Work Report proposed that the company focus on the “Four Modernizations,” implement “Two Adjustments and One Control,” expand outlets, rectify weak industries, and strengthen digital empowerment; the 2025 annual report further emphasizes that the company is strengthening product innovation and scene expansion around the trend of “diversified demand + fragmented channels.” Behind these statements, it reflects a shift in Shuanghui’s operational thinking over the past two years: from reliance on large single products and broad circulation to a greater emphasis on product segmentation, health, snacking, and new retail channels.

Specifically, on the product side, Shuanghui continued to focus on health and youthfulness in 2025. The company mentioned in the annual report that it launched products such as Shuanghui Pro pork sausages, meat-egg pairing sausages, and low-salt luncheon meats to meet demands for low sugar, low fat, low sodium, and high protein; for cold chain products, it introduced Western-style products like Smithfield and Argal, and also entered Chinese-style sauces and marinated products under the “Lu Fu Zhai” brand; snack categories saw the launch of products like tiger skin chicken feet, crystal pork skin, and pork cracklings through “Hui Xiao Pu,” aiming to capture young consumers and multi-scenario needs.

The pet track, which has attracted external attention, was not highlighted as a core business focus in the annual report. However, outside the report, Shuanghui has begun to explore this area. Public information shows that in October 2025, Shuanghui Development led a hundred-million-yuan Series B+ financing round for Zhongyu Pet Food, and on investor interaction platforms, it stated that the company has cooperated with Zhongyu Pet Food on fresh meat supply and equity investments. This indicates that Shuanghui is not uninterested in pet food but currently views it more as a forward-looking layout rather than a mature second growth curve capable of contributing to performance.

It is also noteworthy that the company announced plans to use no more than 6 billion yuan of idle funds for investment and financial management, mainly investing in low-risk, R1-R2 graded financial products. This move is backed by the company’s ample cash reserves—49.69 billion yuan in monetary funds at the end of 2025 and short-term debt investments of 3.26B yuan among other liquid assets—highlighting its focus on capital efficiency.

Industry insiders told Blue Whale News that for a consumer leader still maintaining strong profitability, this move is not surprising but also indicates that Shuanghui currently lacks clear, large-scale new capital expenditure directions. In other words, the company is not short of money but lacks more certain, high-scale new projects.

Looking ahead to 2026, Shuanghui Development proposed to adhere to the strategies of “industrialization, diversification, internationalization, and digitalization,” deepen meat product specialization reform and fresh product differentiation strategies, and plan to invest about 1.3 billion yuan throughout the year in automation, intelligence, and digital upgrades.

Under Wan Hongwei’s leadership, whether this Chinese meat giant can stabilize its trillion-yuan market base while truly running through a second growth curve remains a key market focus.