--- title: "15-year-old college \"prodigy\" loses a hundred billion empire" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/289352269.md" description: "Beingmate's controlling shareholder's equity has been judicially transferred to the Jinhua State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, valued at 856 million. The company has completely transitioned to state-owned control. Founder Xie Hong bids farewell to the company he has led for thirty years. Beingmate was once a leader in domestic milk powder, with a peak market value exceeding 31 billion, but after years of losses and a market value shrinkage of nearly 20 billion, it ultimately relinquished control, marking the end of the founder's era" datetime: "2026-06-10T11:55:19.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/289352269.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/289352269.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/289352269.md) generator: "portal-rs" --- # 15-year-old college "prodigy" loses a hundred billion empire ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://inews.gtimg.com/om_bt/O2DvKqabaHVGTxHOn_skFSV6CB3HumxoGBRTd3LcP-QW4AA/1000?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) In 2008, Beingmate, which was not detected for melamine, was elevated to the altar of "domestic conscience." The founder, who entered university at the age of 15, gradually lost his hundred billion business empire. The well-established domestic milk powder brand Beingmate recently finalized a significant matter. On June 4th, Beingmate officially announced that all the equity of its controlling shareholder was transferred to Jinhua Zhenhe Investment through judicial transfer. This company is a platform fully controlled by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Jinhua City. In simple terms: at a valuation of 856 million, Beingmate has completely changed its surname to "state-owned." ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://inews.gtimg.com/om_bt/ORyLa6_Svr-cB5Hcl6bzwNF593F7YAnTsIUPVpena_BMQAA/641?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) From now on, 61-year-old founder Xie Hong has completely bid farewell to the Beingmate he built over thirty years. From being led by a private founder to being fully taken over by state-owned assets, the era of Beingmate's founders has come to a definitive end. Now, when people mention Beingmate, many's first impression is of losses and low presence. But few know how glorious this company once was. At its peak, annual revenue exceeded 6 billion, with a net profit of over 700 million, and its peak market value surpassed 31 billion. The most exaggerated part is that its market share once surged to 7.4%, firmly surpassing the then Feihe and Yili, making it the undisputed leader of domestic milk powder. At that time, Xie Hong was full of confidence, boldly declaring that he wanted to create a national milk powder brand with 30 billion in revenue and a market value of 100 billion. No one expected that just a few years later, the plot would completely reverse. Today, Beingmate's market value is less than 6 billion, with cumulative losses nearing 2 billion. After several struggles for self-rescue, it ultimately had to hand over control. 1 The birth of Beingmate was entirely the result of founder Xie Hong's step-by-step practical efforts. Born in 1965 in a teacher's family in Taizhou, Zhejiang, Xie Hong showed outstanding academic talent. At the age of 15, he entered Zhejiang Gongshang University, majoring in food hygiene, making him a rare founder with a formal background in the industry. After graduating from university, he stayed on to teach, dedicating himself to food research for many years. In the 1990s, the domestic infant milk powder market was rife with chaos, essentially monopolized by foreign capital. Mead Johnson and Abbott firmly occupied the high-end market, while domestic milk powder was all small workshop models, with varying quality and frequent safety issues. At that time, the market lacked a safe and reliable domestic milk powder suitable for Chinese babies. With keen insight, Xie Hong identified this gap in the market. In 1992, at the age of 27, he decisively abandoned his stable university job, armed with only 150,000 yuan in startup capital, and founded Beingmate in Hangzhou, diving headfirst into the infant milk powder sector In the early days of its establishment, Beingmate had no background or channels, starting everything from scratch. Xie Hong personally took charge of everything, researching milk powder formulas, overseeing production quality at the factory, and visiting various mother and baby stores in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to negotiate partnerships, gradually establishing a foothold in the East China market. Unlike others who copied foreign formulas, Xie insisted on making milk powder suitable for Chinese babies, promoting the brand with the slogan "International Quality, Chinese Formula." With stable quality control and promotion of locally adapted formulas, Beingmate quickly accumulated a loyal group of mothers and babies. Subsequently, Beingmate also expanded into categories such as infant rice cereal, complementary foods, and snacks, building a complete system of baby products. The brand's reputation and market scale grew larger year by year, firmly establishing itself in the industry. ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://inews.gtimg.com/om_bt/OREj7Xw3X6dGmJixHneR65zFihJQ7-MdFTZsk9AZmDatEAA/641?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) The year 2008 was the darkest moment for China's milk powder industry, yet it became a turning point for Beingmate. The melamine incident that year nearly devastated the entire domestic milk powder industry. The vast majority of domestic brands were found to have issues, leading to a complete collapse of their reputation, and many companies went bankrupt. Foreign brands seized the opportunity to aggressively capture the market, almost monopolizing the domestic high-end milk powder market. Amid the chaos of the industry's downfall, Beingmate was one of the few survivors. With all batches of products passing inspection, Beingmate quickly gained recognition and became the first choice for domestic brands. In no time, national distributors actively sought cooperation, and offline stores rapidly spread across the country, leading to explosive sales growth. Riding on this wave of positive reputation, Beingmate surged ahead. Just three years later, in 2011, Beingmate successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as the "first domestic milk powder stock" with pride. By 2013, Beingmate reached the peak of its development, with revenue exceeding 6.1 billion and net profit over 700 million. In terms of scale, profit, and brand influence, it firmly held the position of the number one domestic milk powder brand, solidly leading the industry. 2 No one expected that this high point would only last a few years, as the company took a sharp downturn, with various troubles following one after another. Just three months after going public, 46-year-old Xie Hong chose to step back due to health issues, completely relinquishing control of the company's management. With the founder's departure, Beingmate underwent a complete transformation. The company's management began to change frequently, with professional managers taking turns in leadership roles, and the corporate development strategy changed every year, lacking any long-term planning. To maintain the illusion of high growth in the capital market, the new management took the most aggressive risk: they aggressively pushed products into offline channels. After forcing a large amount of product onto distributors, they could only sell at low prices across regions to quickly recover cash. In just a few years, the pricing system and high-end brand reputation that Beingmate had painstakingly built over more than a decade completely collapsed. While the main business was in jeopardy, the company also began to blindly expand and venture into unrelated fields such as finance and insurance, gradually hollowing out its originally solid milk powder business The hidden dangers are accumulating, and a blow-up is just a matter of time. In 2016, Beingmate suffered its first major loss of 781 million, and in 2017, the loss further expanded to 1.057 billion. After two consecutive years of massive losses, it was directly labeled with an ST risk warning. In a critical moment, in 2018, Xie Hong urgently returned to put out the fire. He made bold cuts to the business and did everything he could to pull the company back from the brink of delisting. However, by this time, the landscape of the milk powder industry had already changed dramatically. Feihe and Yili had long established complete industrial chains, channels, and brand barriers, firmly occupying the mainstream market. Since then, Beingmate has completely fallen into a growth bottleneck, with annual revenue only between 3 billion to 4 billion, directly halved compared to its peak period. From 2016 to 2024, the cumulative loss over nine years exceeded 1.9 billion, which is often said in the industry as losing nearly 2 billion in ten years. ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://inews.gtimg.com/om_bt/OQCKm63bOMEMD0RO3NhwDF0xPffFjHT6nLZkMJA7gFDpEAA/641?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) What is little known is that this time, Jinhua state-owned assets taking over is already the second time Beingmate has sought help from state-owned capital. In 2018, Beingmate was on the verge of delisting and, in a desperate situation, introduced the first round of state-owned capital—Changcheng Guorong under Changcheng Asset. The other party invested 503 million to enter, helping Beingmate briefly turn a profit through debt restructuring and resource integration. At that time, Beingmate was very grateful, and Xie Hong even bowed deeply for three seconds at the signing ceremony, stating that this was a "life-saving grace." However, this seemingly perfect rescue ended hastily. Public data later showed that most of this 503 million life-saving money was not used for the operation of the listed company. Among them, 284 million was used to transfer equity, and 233 million was pledged to the controlling shareholder, with very little actually used for channel rectification, product research and development, or revitalizing the main business. After a brief improvement, the company's operations changed again. By the end of 2023, Changcheng Guorong had no choice but to auction off its debt at a discount, resulting in a direct loss of nearly 100 million from this initial life-saving investment, marking the complete failure of the first round of state-owned capital rescue. According to public information, for many years, Beingmate Group's equity had a high pledge ratio. After the market deleveraging in 2018, the liquidity of the controlling shareholder was completely exhausted, and the debt crisis was transmitted layer by layer to the listed company. Before this judicial reorganization, almost all of the shares held by the group in the listed company had been pledged or frozen, entangled in debt disputes, and it had long been unable to control the company. 3 Many people think that Xie Hong voluntarily relinquished power due to age, but in fact, this transfer of power was a forced move. According to public information, for many years, Beingmate Group's equity pledge ratio remained high. After the market deleveraging in 2018, the liquidity of the controlling shareholder was completely exhausted, and the debt crisis was transmitted layer by layer to the listed company. As of July 2025, when applying for pre-reorganization, **98.85% of the shares held by Beingmate Group in the listed company had been pledged or frozen**, with the total amount of group borrowings once reaching 1.199 billion, and the debt pressure had completely exploded More seriously, the warning letter issued by the Zhejiang Securities Regulatory Bureau in April 2025 exposed a fatal flaw in corporate governance: the controlling shareholder had non-operationally occupied the listed company's funds in 2021 and 2022, totaling **47.8521 million yuan** over the two years. On one side, there is a huge debt burden, and on the other side, there is the illegal occupation of the listed company's funds. The controlling shareholder is completely mired in a quagmire, and the listed company cannot stand on its own. Previously, local state-owned assets in Hangzhou had briefly entered the scene, but they only held a minor stake and could not resolve the deep-seated debt and governance crisis. Ultimately, Jinhua State-owned Assets' Jinhua Zhenhe took over with a substantial investment of 856 million yuan, gaining control of the company and becoming the true backstop. It is worth mentioning that just before the state-owned assets took over, Beingmate actually showed signs of a brief recovery. ![Image](https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://inews.gtimg.com/om_bt/OIy_tZA3Sg5VE5sT4xD-9zofvFRhr5aUuWw4mFF1WQqbkAA/641?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg) In 2025, Beingmate's total revenue was 2.775 billion yuan, with a net profit attributable to the parent company of 154 million yuan, a **nearly 50% year-on-year surge in net profit**, seemingly emerging from the loss quagmire, with operational conditions somewhat restored. However, the recovery was merely fleeting, and the foundation was extremely unstable. Entering 2026, the downward trend immediately reappeared, with first-quarter revenue declining by 9.67% year-on-year and net profit attributable to the parent company decreasing by 8.98%, abruptly halting the growth momentum. On one side is the barely repaired book profit, and on the other side are the continuously pressured revenue growth, deeply rooted historical burdens, and a chaotic channel system that has persisted for years. Amidst these compounded issues, even if Xie Hong is determined to hold on, he is already powerless to turn the tide. With this state-owned asset officially taking over through judicial reorganization, this founder who has been deeply involved in the industry for thirty years can only completely relinquish control and exit the stage in silence ### Related Stocks - [002570.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/002570.CN.md) ## Related News & Research - [14:17 ETEnzymedica Launches Phytosome® Formulas for Sleep, Stress and Whole-Body Comfort*](https://longbridge.com/en/news/296388269.md) - [Abbott agrees to $670 million settlement of infant formula cases](https://longbridge.com/en/news/296534956.md) - [Vector Science files US provisional patent for orthopedic tissue-regeneration peptide platform](https://longbridge.com/en/news/296483037.md) - [Abbott settles appeal over $495 million infant formula verdict](https://longbridge.com/en/news/296386129.md) - [Bucked Up® Launches Hunt: Orange Cream, a Limited-Edition Flavor Built to Fuel Your Hunt](https://longbridge.com/en/news/296524338.md) --- > **Disclaimer: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.**