舍得酒“失速”，郭广昌真“舍得”

AI Question · Does Guo Guangchang’s Mention of “Decluttering, Letting Go, and Moving On” Signal a Strategic Shift Away From “Holding Back”?

In 2025, the baijiu industry entered a period of deep adjustment. Rational consumption, price-tier differentiation, and pressure from squeezed stockpiles became the industry’s main theme. As a second-tier premium liquor company built around “old liquor” as its core moat, Shede Liquor Industry (600702.SH) released its 2025 annual performance report on March 20.

According to the report, after Shede Liquor Industry’s non-GAAP net profit plunged by 77.9% in 2024, it fell again by more than 50% in 2025. In just two years, Shede Liquor Industry’s non-GAAP net profit dropped from 199M yuan in 2023 to 1.99 billion yuan in 2025.

Amid the winter in the baijiu industry, as the controlling shareholder, Fosun Group set a strategy for Shede Liquor Industry—“old liquor, multi-brand matrix, youngerization, and internationalization,” focusing on the mid-to-high-end baijiu market. There is no doubt that the strategy has taken a straight nosedive. Strategic misalignment, earnings declines, executive departures, and dealer losses suggest that Guo Guangchang’s calculations may have gone wrong.

Sustained pressure

In its annual report, Shede Liquor Industry analyzed that in 2025 the overall baijiu industry remained in a deep adjustment period, market competition intensified, consumer motivation was insufficient, and downward pressure on the industry increased, leaving baijiu product sales under continuous strain.

On March 18, at the annual A-Bu-Li China Entrepreneurs Forum, Shede Liquor Industry’s CEO Tang Heng said plainly that the industry is facing three major pressures brought by consumer rationalization-driven downgrading trends, the cyclical clearing of deep industry adjustments, and rigid constraints on the policy side. Tang said this is the hardest year the industry has seen in 20 years.

The annual report data shows that in 2025, Shede Liquor Industry achieved operating revenue of 4.42B yuan, down 17.51% year over year; operating profit of 300 million yuan, down 47.05% year over year; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 223 million yuan, down 35.51% year over year; and after excluding non-recurring items, net profit attributable to parents of 199 million yuan, down even more sharply by 50.31% year over year.

Judging by quarterly performance, Shede Liquor Industry’s full-year results show a pattern of high in the first half and lower thereafter. In the first quarter, revenue was 1.58B yuan and attributable net profit was 346 million yuan, representing the peak for the year. In the second and third quarters, results gradually fell, with net profits of 97 million yuan and 29 million yuan, respectively. In the fourth quarter, affected by factors such as industry off-season, channel inventory clearing, and expense accruals, the company recorded a single-quarter loss of 249 million yuan, directly dragging down the year’s overall profitability.

From the product side, in 2025 Shede Liquor Industry’s product structure showed clear differentiation: second-tier premium products declined, while the mass-liquor segment acted as a counterbalance. The annual report shows that in 2025, mid-to-high-end liquor generated revenue of 3.12 billion yuan, down 23.83% year over year, mainly due to weak demand for second-tier premium products. Ordinary liquor revenue was 733 million yuan, up 5.75%, the only segment with positive growth for the whole year. Bottle-glass liquor (glass bottle) products recorded revenue of 470 million yuan, down slightly by 3.5% year over year.

On the cash flow front, in 2025 the net cash flow from operating activities was -523 million yuan. Although this improved by 26.08% year over year, it still did not return to a positive operating cycle. As an important indicator of healthy operations in the baijiu industry, operating cash flow has remained negative, directly reflecting the company’s relatively weak receivables collection ability, with inventory and channel occupied funds still at high levels. This will directly affect the sustainability of dividend payments, the intensity of capital expenditures, and the company’s ability to withstand risks. Meanwhile, the company’s contract liabilities were 147 million yuan, down 11% year over year. Downstream distributors showed weaker willingness to pay and stock up, and market confidence still needs to be restored.

A number of signs indicate that, as a representative of second-tier premium baijiu, Shede Liquor is in a deep adjustment period characterized by slowing down and improving quality, structural reversal, and channel reshaping. Operating data shows clear differentiation, and the effects of the strategic shift, along with the associated pains, appear in parallel. As one of the “Six Golden Flowers” of Sichuan baijiu and a longstanding liquor enterprise, Shede is standing at the bottom of the industry cycle and the turning point in corporate strategy: on one hand, relying on Fosun’s ecosystem to connect to high-end circles and sticking to the fundamental base strategy of old liquor; on the other hand, fully betting on the mass-liquor track and making the realistic choice to offset pressure on second-tier premium products through online channels.

In its annual report, Shede Liquor Industry stated that currently, short-term demand for baijiu is not meeting expectations, baijiu consumption is gradually entering a rational era, and consumer price tiers are showing a clear trend toward differentiation. The industry’s squeeze-driven competition for existing market share continues to intensify, and market share is accelerating toward leading regions, leading companies, and leading brands. Baijiu enterprises need to move forward toward “newness” across multiple dimensions—category innovation, brand building, marketing, and cultural communication—so as to maintain vitality and advantages amid fierce competition.

Internal turmoil

Through its listed subsidiary, Yuyuan Co., Ltd., Fosun Group acquired 70% of Tuopai Shede Group in December 2020 for 4.53 billion yuan, becoming the de facto controller of Shede Liquor Industry. Shede Liquor Industry has two core baijiu brands under it: “Shede” (mainly old liquor and second-tier premium) and “Tuopai” (mass-market famous liquor).

After taking control, Fosun Group began dispatching executives. However, amid industry volatility, personnel changes at Shede Liquor Industry’s management have occurred one after another in recent years. In the early stage, Zhang Shuping (a veteran at Shede) was retained as chairman, and Zou Qingli was appointed vice president and CFO. In December 2022, Zhang Shuping (a veteran at Shede) stepped down as chairman. In January 2023, Ni Qiang (a Fosun/Yuyuan executive) took over as chairman. Pu Jizhou (a veteran at Shede) became co-chairman, and in December Pu Jizhou was promoted to chairman while Ni Qiang stepped down. Later on, Fosun Group successively dispatched executives such as Tang Heng, Wu Yifei, and Wei Wei.

On March 3, 2026, Shede Liquor Industry released an announcement. The company’s vice president Wang Yong (in charge of government affairs/strategic customers) applied to resign from the post of vice president due to work-related reasons. After resigning, he would no longer hold any position in the company. It is understood that “post-80s” Wang Yong took office as vice president in January 2023, with his originally scheduled term ending on September 20, 2026.

Before that, in March 2025, the company’s vice president and chief financial officer Zou Qingli resigned due to his personal career plan. Earlier still, in October 2024, Wang Weilong, another vice president in charge of marketing operations, also resigned.

Over the past five years, Shede Liquor Industry’s core executive team has changed more than 20 times. Wang Yong’s resignation further intensified market concerns about the stability of its execution. The baijiu industry relies heavily on the core team and the dealer network, so personnel fluctuations will directly translate into performance at the terminal level.

On the channel side, the pains of adjusting Shede Liquor’s traditional channels have intensified. In 2025, revenue from the traditional wholesale distributor agency channel was 3.25B yuan, down 25.19% year over year. In 2025, Shede Liquor Industry added 378 new distributors and exited 516 distributors. By the end of 2025, the company had 2,525 distributors, down from 2,663 at the end of 2024—a reduction of 138. Moreover, the trend of dealer losses is still accelerating.

In its annual report, Shede Liquor Industry stated that its sales model is mainly based on regional agents, with its own e-commerce as a supplement. The company has thousands of distributors, forming a relatively flat, sales model across regions and product lines focused on traditional agents. On top of this, the company has established an e-commerce model led by self-operated channels.

However, Shede’s distributors generally face issues such as high inventory, slow sell-through, and thin profits. Although the e-commerce channel has grown impressively, in 2025 e-commerce revenue accounted for less than 20%, so it has not yet formed an effective replacement for traditional channels, meaning channel transformation pressure remains high. In addition, distributors’ confidence and market demand are still in a recovery stage.

The “Second-Tier Premium Liquor” “Breakthrough” Path Full of Thorns

Shede’s predicament is not an isolated case; it is a snapshot of the 2025 baijiu industry’s “deep adjustment period.” Data from the China Alcoholic Beverages Association shows that in 2024, the combined total inventory of 20 A-share baijiu listed companies reached 168.39B yuan, up 19.29 billion yuan year over year, with inventory levels continuing to rise. At the dealer level, more than 40% of distributors reported tight cash flow; many distributors experienced longer inventory turnover cycles and weaker ability to collect payments.

In the industry, about 60% of liquor companies saw their profit margins decline. Even though leading companies have resilience, overall pressure is still immense. Many distilleries have had to proactively control volume and stabilize prices. Since the second half of 2024, companies such as Moutai and Wuliangye have reduced market placements one after another to ease channel supply-demand tensions and keep terminal prices steady.

Against this backdrop, the second-tier premium price segment was hit first. According to the “2025 China Baijiu Market Interim Research Report” jointly released by the China Alcoholic Beverages Association and KPMG, in the first half of 2025, products priced at 500—800 yuan faced the most difficult survival conditions; the most severe inverted pricing occurred in the 800—1,500 yuan range; and the mainstream consumption price bands have shifted downward from the previous 300—500 yuan to 100—300 yuan. In other words, the heat of mid-range price tiers has declined, making more approachable, hundred-yuan baijiu the main volume driver, while high-priced liquor has seen slow sell-through or even become unsold.

When the price system collapses, the once-promising second-tier premium segment quickly cools. Regional players are especially squeezed from both sides: on one hand, they are limited by insufficient brand strength and lack of nationwide presence, putting them at a disadvantage when competing in the high-end market against first-tier brands such as Moutai and Wuliangye; on the other hand, they are pressured in the mid-to-low-end market by regional strong brands and crystal-clear “light bottle” (guangping) liquor.

In the “Six Golden Flowers” map of Sichuan baijiu, Shede’s position has also undergone a subtle change in this round of adjustments. The “Six Golden Flowers” of Sichuan baijiu usually refers to Wuliangye, Luzhou Laojiao, Jiannanchun, Langjiu, Shuijingfang, and Shede. Among them, Wuliangye and Luzhou Laojiao are nationwide famous liquors with the strongest anti-cycle ability. In 2024, Wuliangye achieved revenue of 89.18B yuan, up 7.09%, and net profit of 31.85B yuan, up 5.44%. Luzhou Laojiao’s revenue was 31.2B yuan, up 3.19%, and net profit was 13.47B yuan, up 1.71%. Even with slower growth rates, these two leaders still maintained steady growth.

The performance of the regional second-tier premium ranks is clearly differentiated: Shuijingfang’s 2024 revenue was 5.22B yuan, up 5.32%, and net profit was 1.34B yuan, up 5.69%; by contrast, Shede’s 2024 revenue was 5.36B yuan and net profit was 346 million yuan, both experiencing a sharp decline. In 2025, Shede’s revenue fell to 4.42B yuan, while Shuijingfang is expected to stay above the 5 billion mark with slight positive growth. This means Shede has stepped back from its past role as the “dark horse” that challenged the “second echelon” and returned to a relatively later position within the Sichuan famous-liquor lineup.

Facing its difficulties, Fosun International chairman Guo Guangchang said at the 2026 A-Bu-Li China Entrepreneurs Forum annual meeting: “There’s a saying about cutting, letting go, and moving on. It’s the norm in life. When making decisions, you can’t start only from yourself—you need to start from the matter itself and from the long-term overall picture. During the process of cutting, letting go, and moving on, you should preserve a clear and calm mindset, and savor the wisdom of ‘letting go and taking what you need.’ I think this is the attitude we should have, and it’s also a lifelong practice.” Perhaps Guo Guangchang is truly “letting go” with regard to Shede liquor.

(Author: Li Qiang)