Commercial gross profit margin accounts for over 60%, and lightweight assets break through! New City Holdings reshapes the development paradigm of private real estate developers

With the real estate industry entering a new stage of development, NewTown Holdings (601155.SH) has demonstrated resilience in its performance by leveraging a “residential + commercial” dual-engine driving strategy. On March 27, NewTown Holdings disclosed its 2025 annual report. The company achieved operating revenue of RMB 53.012 billion, and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of RMB 680 million. During the period, the company had ample cash on hand, multi-tier financing products were implemented, and financing costs continued to decline.

In recent years, NewTown Holdings has adhered to the “camel spirit,” running endurance-races. These spiritual traits—accumulating strength in adversity and moving forward steadily—have given the company renewed vitality in commercial operations and light-asset built-for-others project management. Compared with purely residential developers, NewTown Holdings has formed a scaled development system in the commercial real estate sector, enhancing the company’s ability to withstand market fluctuations and cycles. In 2025, the gross margin of the company’s property leasing and management business was nearly 70%, contributing over 60% of the gross profit scale. The company has also simultaneously broadened space for lightweight development through built-for-others and delegated management businesses, building additional profit growth.

Business Operations Build Half the Kingdom

Built-for-Others and Property Management Contribute Additional Profit

Backed by a strategy of balancing “light and heavy,” NewTown Holdings maintained strong cash collection in its development business in 2025, while its commercial momentum continued to release effectively, showing notable results in resisting market fluctuation cycles.

In 2025, NewTown Holdings focused on “sales with cash collection” in its real estate development business, enhancing its ability to monetize GFA. During the reporting period, the company recorded contracted sales area of 2.5358 million square meters, completing contracted sales value of RMB 19.270 billion, and achieved RMB 21.276 billion in all-account funding receipts, with an all-account funding receipt ratio of 110.41%.

At the same time, the company’s commercial operations base continued to be strengthened, becoming the core engine for performance growth. Judging from the composition of operating revenue from its main businesses, in 2025 NewTown Holdings’ property leasing and management business generated operating revenue of RMB 13.036 billion, up 8.37% year over year. The gross margin in this segment was as high as 69.77%, with a gross profit scale of RMB 9.095 billion. The segment’s proportion of the company’s total gross profit increased from 48% in the same period last year to 63%.

As a benchmark for experiential commercial in China, in 2025 Wuyue Property Management achieved stable operations. Total business operation revenue reached RMB 14.090 billion, up 10% year over year. Five newly opened Wuyue Plaza projects were launched. Sales, revenue, foot traffic, and members’ spending all increased year over year. By the end of 2025, the company had laid out 207 Wuyue Plazas across 141 cities nationwide. The number of plazas already opened and operating was 178, with an opened area of 16.4907 million square meters, and an occupancy rate of 97.86%.

Beyond deepening its residential and commercial base, NewTown Holdings is also expanding space for lightweight development through built-for-others and delegated management businesses. In 2025, NewTown Holdings’ built-for-others and delegated management platform—NewTown Built-for-Others and Property Management—added 10.61 million square meters of newly signed contract area. It ranked eighth in the “2025 China Real Estate Built-for-Others Enterprises Newly Signed Scale Ranking” released by the China Index Academy. By the end of 2025, NewTown Built-for-Others and Property Management had cumulatively managed 155 projects; cumulative managed total GFA exceeded 26 million square meters, covering multiple business formats such as residential, commercial, and ultra-large-scale integrated complexes. The company’s strategic layout in the light-asset track has entered the period of results conversion.

Operating Cash Flow Has Remained Positive for 8 Consecutive Years

Low-Cost Financing Advantages Stand Out

Sustained growth in commercial operations and stabilization in its residential business have kept NewTown Holdings’ financial performance steady. By the end of 2025, NewTown Holdings’ cash balance on hand was RMB 6.8 billion, with abundant cash on hand; its net gearing ratio was 56.97%, continuing to stay at a relatively low level. The company’s net operating cash flow was RMB 1.425 billion, with net operating cash flow positive for 8 consecutive years.

Based on maintaining a “zero default” record, in recent years NewTown Holdings has gained recognition from regulators and investors. In 2025, NewTown Holdings completed the issuance of 3 mid-term notes totaling RMB 3.65 billion. By the end of the reporting period, NewTown Holdings had received total group credit lines from major banks totaling RMB 62.9 billion. The company and its subsidiaries had used RMB 24.1 billion of the credit lines. The company’s overall average financing cost was 5.44%, down 0.48 percentage points from the end of last year.

During the period, NewTown Holdings broke new ground first in the asset securitization sector. In November 2025, the company successfully issued “Wuyue Plaza Inter-Institution REITs,” with Qingpu Wuyue Plaza as the underlying asset, setting the industry record of “double firsts” nationwide for consumption-category inter-institution REITs and A-share private enterprise inter-institution REITs. This move by NewTown Holdings has revitalized its stock of commercial assets, constructing a new all-cycle management paradigm of “invest, finance, manage, and exit” for commercial real estate.

For offshore financing, NewTown Holdings’ parent company NewTown Development issued $300 million in senior unsecured bonds in 2025, becoming the first private real estate developer to restart offshore financing in the past three years; its subsidiary NewTown Global successfully issued $160 million in priority guaranteed notes.

In the future, NewTown Holdings will continue to enhance its advantages as a leading nationwide commercial operations company. At the 2025 annual results briefing held on March 30, Wang Xiaosong, Chairman and President of NewTown Holdings, said: “The company has fully seized structural opportunities in the consumer market. Relying on the core philosophy of Wuyue Property Management’s ‘Five-Step Operation Method,’ we focus on enhancing asset value and upgrading the consumer experience. As a nationwide commercial operations industry leader, during the industry’s deep adjustment period, we build core competitiveness through differentiated strategies—by strengthening project positioning that matches consumer demand, refining brand combinations, innovating immersive scenarios, and linking member ecosystems across multiple dimensions—continuously reinforcing our commercial fundamentals.”

(Editor: Pengpeng Dong )

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