Camel in the Desert: Water Storage and Resource Exploration in the 2025 Financial Report of New City Holdings

Finding a water source in a sea of sand is the most important survival skill for camels.

In 2025, China’s real estate sector remains intertwined in the pain of transformation and the opportunity of reconstruction, as most property developers are busy looking for the right course—some are shrinking property development, while others are focusing on operating businesses. Jiangsu private property developer Xincheng Holding has gradually completed its identity shift: it no longer relies solely on selling homes to survive, but instead has turned into an operating platform built on commercial cash flow as its moat.

Image source: Visual China

On March 27, Xincheng Holding’s 2025 annual report showed that during the period the company achieved operating revenue of RMB 53.01B, and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of RMB 680 million, making it one of the few private real estate developers that still maintains profitability.

Profitability does not rely on one-off asset disposals or debt restructuring; it comes from endogenous growth in its core business, especially as the commercial segment continues to contribute high gross margins.

In 2025, Xincheng Holding achieved total commercial operating revenue of RMB 14.09B, up 10.00% year over year, with its share of overall revenue rising to 25%. In addition, the gross profit from property leasing and management accounts for 63% of the company’s total gross profit, with a gross margin of 70%, indicating a fundamental improvement in the company’s profit structure.

Cash flow is the lifeblood of a business. By the end of 2025, Xincheng Holding’s operating cash flow had remained positive for 8 consecutive years, and it has also maintained a publicly traded-market record of “zero defaults.”

On the financing side, Xincheng Holding is also a rare “financing trailblazer” among private real estate developers. Its diversified financing channels—including U.S. dollar bonds, MTN notes, public REITs, and inter-institution REITs—send a clear signal to the market: this private real estate developer still has “the ability to generate cash” and credit value.

“A camel” is a metaphor that people at Xincheng use for themselves. Storing water in a favorable cycle, holding firm in a downturn, and finding a water source through each stretch of wind and sand is the “camel spirit” that Xincheng Holding possesses for surviving across cycles. As the real estate industry has long since moved beyond scale-related anxiety, Xincheng Holding demonstrates a completely different survival posture—rebuilding its valuation base through commercial operations, keeping to its own pace, and moving step by step toward an oasis.

Commercial operations build a “cash-flow moat”

When most real estate developers’ profits depend heavily on residential development and sales, Xincheng Holding had already begun laying out its “dual-engine” strategy more than a decade ago. As a result, when the industry is in a counter-cycle period, the company can adjust quickly—actively shrinking its development business and focusing on commercial operations.

In 2012, the first shopping mall of Xincheng Holding—Changzhou Wujin Wuyue Plaza—opened officially. Today, Xincheng Holding has laid out 207 Wuyue Plazas across 141 cities nationwide; 178 have already opened and are in operation, with an opening area of 16.4907 million square meters and an occupancy rate of 97.86%. The number of shopping malls that open ranks first among listed companies in and outside China.

In the past year, domestic consumption recovery momentum has weakened somewhat. Across the country, 337 shopping centers newly opened in the full year, the lowest level in nearly 11 years, and the commercial real estate industry is shifting comprehensively from scale expansion to a high-quality development stage of “stock optimization + value deepening.”

In this environment, Xincheng Holding brought 5 Wuyue Plazas to open as scheduled. Meanwhile, among the 178 Wuyue Plazas already in operation, 30 opened Wuyue Plazas achieved through management output, which underscores the strong capabilities of Wujin business management in recruitment, operations, and project control.

Scale is the foundation; operational efficiency is the core competitiveness of commercial real estate. Not only has the company kept its occupancy rate at a high level of 97.86%, but the key operating metrics of its commercial segment are also showing an upward trend.

In 2025, the total customer footfall of Wuyue Plazas reached 2B person-times, up 13.31% year over year; total sales were RMB 97.0 billion (excluding vehicle sales), up 7.18% year over year. As of the end of 2025, membership numbered 54.97 million, up 25.82% from the end of 2024. Sales, revenue, footfall, and member consumption all increased year over year, indicating that Wuyue Plazas have shifted from a “flow-generating” mode to a “retaining/increasing value” mode.

When the industry shifts from incremental expansion to stock optimization, how to keep long-operating projects continuously energized is also a key yardstick for measuring commercial operation capabilities.

In 2025, Changzhou Wujin Wuyue Plaza completed renovation and upgrades. Not only were the exterior façade curtain walls renovated and reinstalled, but the internal layout was also vertically integrated, achieving upgrades for 135 brands and revitalization with an enhanced area exceeding 23k square meters. Through this upgrade, Wujin Wuyue Plaza also became the “first-ever Golden Label Wuyue Plaza in China.” The performance during the first three days after the upgraded opening shows that the project’s customer footfall reached 485k person-times, and sales exceeded RMB 42.5 million, with both figures setting new historical records for Wuyue Plazas during their operation period nationwide.

“Currently, the company’s commercial rental income growth is stable and sustainable. Quality comes before quantity, and quality comes before price. The company fully grasps structural opportunities in the consumer market, relying on Wuyue business management’s ‘five-step operating method’ as a core philosophy, focusing on increasing asset value and upgrading the consumer experience.” Xincheng Holding’s chairman Wang Xiaosong said.

The strong performance of the commercial segment is the company’s safety cushion. On the real estate development side as well, Xincheng Holding can choose to proactively shrink, focus on cash collection and delivery of homes, and thus provide protection for the company’s cash-flow safety. In 2025, Xincheng Holding delivered more than 38k housing units; over the past three years, cumulative deliveries exceeded 278k units. In the same year, the company achieved cash collection of RMB 23k, with a cash-collection rate of 110.41%.

Financial soundness builds a safety cushion and maintains “zero defaults” in public markets

In 2025, the credit “ice” in private real estate developers’ financing environment had not fully melted. In such a difficult environment, Xincheng Holding completed multiple financing breakthroughs in different forms and became a “trailblazer” in the industry.

Last June, Xincheng Holding’s parent company—Xincheng Development—successfully issued a 3-year, $300 million senior unsecured bond, which was also the first overseas bond by a private real estate developer in the past three years. In November 2025 and February 2026, the company issued overseas U.S. dollar bonds twice again, with total issuance of about RMB 5.6 billion.

For the whole of last year, Xincheng Holding also successfully issued three tranches of medium-term notes, totaling RMB 3.65 billion. All received full guarantees from China Bond Credit Enhancement Investment Co., Ltd. The minimum issuance interest rate was as low as 2.68%, a historical low, and the debt maturity was further extended to 5 years.

In November last year, the China Securities Regulatory Commission released the “Announcement on Promoting Pilot Projects of Commercial Real Estate Investment Trust Funds (Draft for Comments),” which formally included commercial real estate in the scope of pilot public REITs. This provided key financial-tool support for the real estate industry to transition to a new mode of asset operations.

Also in November last year, Xincheng Holding successfully listed a national first consumption-category inter-institution REITs, with the underlying asset being Shanghai Qingpu Wuyue Plaza. This not only effectively unlocked commercial assets, but also connected the full closed-loop process of “investing, financing, building, managing, and exiting,” providing a replicable template for the industry. On March 16, Guojin Asset Management—Wuyue Plaza inter-institution REITs 2026’s first expansion was approved by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, with an expected fund-raising of RMB 485k.

By fully leveraging policy support, Xincheng Holding achieved optimization of total financing volume and structure, as well as a continuous decline in financing costs, ensuring full repayment at maturity for all debts in the public market.

Financial statement data shows that in 2025, Xincheng Holding’s net cash flow from operating activities was RMB 38k, positive for 8 consecutive years, and it also ensured that every public debt is repaid early or on schedule, maintaining a publicly traded-market record of “zero defaults.”

As of the end of 2025, Xincheng Holding had secured total group credit lines from major banks totaling RMB 62.9 billion, of which the company and its subsidiaries had utilized RMB 24.1 billion. The company’s net gearing ratio was 56.97%, staying at a low level in the industry. The overall average financing cost was 5.44%, down 0.48 percentage points compared with the end of 2024.

Xincheng Holding’s financial负责人 Guan Youdong revealed that in the future, the company will continue exploring the use of various equity and debt financing tools, such as multi-tier REITs, corporate bonds, medium-term notes, and loans for operating properties, to broaden financing channels, extend financing terms, and reduce financing costs.

When the industry shifts from increment to stock, Xincheng Holding uses its own operating capability and strict financial discipline to build a ballast stone that helps it resist storms; in a pro-cyclical period, it is the growth engine for profits; in a counter-cyclical period, it is the supply line for crossing through wind and sand.

From developer to operator—valuation comes into repair

As the commercial segment’s contribution exceeds more than 60%, Xincheng Holding’s valuation logic is undergoing fundamental changes. The market no longer simply classifies it as a residential developer; instead, it is starting to reassess it within a framework of a commercial operator.

Meanwhile, a series of financing breakthroughs and credit performance in 2025 are also gradually repairing the capital market’s valuation expectations for the company.

At the end of last year, Morgan Stanley upgraded Xincheng Holding’s rating to “Overweight,” noting that Xincheng Holding achieves rental growth beyond expectations by increasing its market share and continues to look favorably on the company’s prospects for asset securitization. Recently, multiple domestic securities firms also gave Xincheng Holding “Buy” ratings.

Beyond an increasingly mature commercial segment, Xincheng Holding is transforming the commercial and residential development and management capabilities it has accumulated over many years into light-asset service products that can be output to others.

In 2025, Xincheng Construction Management added newly signed contract area of 10.61 million square meters. By the end of 2025, it had accumulated 155 managed projects and cumulative total managed construction area of more than 26 million square meters, covering government housing entrusted construction, commercial project entrusted construction, and it has also expanded and developed incremental service tracks.

Image source: Visual China

It is understood that in November 2025, Xincheng Holding “split its construction management business into two,” namely Xincheng Wanjia Construction Management and Xincheng Hongtu Construction Management. Two veteran executives will lead them, marking the upgrade of the construction management business from a side activity to a new core strategic growth point.

At present, Xincheng Construction Management has basically completed its nationwide layout. Moreover, its business growth rate is far higher than the average growth rate of the industry’s TOP20, showing extremely strong growth potential.

When walking in the desert, what camels rely on is not explosive power, but water storage and endurance. In the period of deep adjustment in the industry, relying on the commercial operating energy it has accumulated for the long term, Xincheng Holding has become one of the few private real estate developers that still remains profitable. With a pragmatic narrative of “only by staying alive will there be a future,” it offsets anxiety about “falling behind” and steps out with the solid stride of an endurance runner.

（责任编辑：董萍萍 ）

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