Log in to the Sina Finance app and search for "Disclosure" to view more rating levels. For stock trading, check the Jin Qilin analyst research reports — authoritative, professional, timely, and comprehensive, helping you uncover potential thematic opportunities! Source: Yema Finance. The number one customer and supplier raise serious doubts. Author: Gao Yan, Jia Zicong. Editor: Ye Kai. Qianye Jewelry (833585.NQ), whose actual controller is suspected of having "absconded," has now had its "false books" dragged into the spotlight.

On September 11, Qianye Jewelry's lead broker, Northeast Securities, issued a risk warning announcement: through WeChat groups, phone calls, emails, and even on-site visits, the company was unable to contact actual controllers Lin Mingjie and Gao Xiaosong, a married couple, for unknown reasons. The 2026 semi-annual report shows that Qianye Jewelry's monetary funds were only 933,700 yuan, of which about 540,000 yuan had been frozen due to litigation; of total assets of 1.589 billion yuan, inventory reached 1.535 billion yuan, accounting for 96.56% of total assets.

While nearly its entire fortune was piled into a single cabinet of gold jewelry, Qianye Jewelry's number one major customer had a corporate email address identical to that of one of the company's own subsidiaries, and its historical registered address also completely overlapped. This kind of coincidence that only happens among "insiders" was directly exposed by a regulatory inquiry letter.

A gold jewelry brand founded 25 years ago, with more than 200 directly operated stores across the country, which once hired Hollywood star Anne Hathaway as its spokesperson, and whose peak market value on the New Third Board approached 2.7 billion yuan, has thus laid its own crisis bare under the spotlight.

Was the number one customer actually an "insider"?

Not long before the actual controller lost contact, on August 24, regulators had just issued an inquiry letter to Qianye Jewelry regarding its 2025 annual report. According to Qianye Jewelry's 2025 annual report, the company's sales to Beijing Liuguang Zhijin Culture Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Liuguang Zhijin") that year amounted to 71.2896 million yuan, accounting for 16.29% of annual total sales, an increase of 84.56% over the previous year. In 2024, this customer contributed sales of 38.6268 million yuan, accounting for 5.04%. Within a single year, it jumped from roughly the fifth-largest customer to the number one buyer supporting one-sixth of the company's revenue.

What was abnormal was not just the growth rate. The inquiry letter directly listed the "three similarities" between Liuguang Zhijin and Qianye Jewelry: first, Liuguang Zhijin's corporate email was the same as that of Qianye Jewelry (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.; second, Liuguang Zhijin's historical registered address was consistent with Qianye Jewelry's historical address; third, Liuguang Zhijin was originally named "Beijing Xinchong Jewelry Co., Ltd.," and had deep ties with Qianye Jewelry. Based on this, regulators required the company to explain whether there were related-party relationships or other interest arrangements between Liuguang Zhijin and the company, its controlling shareholder, actual controller, directors, supervisors, and senior management. The annual audit accountant Zhitong was also required to issue a clear opinion on the authenticity of sales revenue.

Even more intriguing was the trend in accounts receivable. At the end of 2024, Qianye Jewelry's accounts receivable balance from Liuguang Zhijin was still 12.6013 million yuan, but by the end of 2025 it had plummeted to 113,200 yuan. A major customer purchasing more than 70 million yuan annually had almost become cash-on-delivery with not a cent owed. In the jewelry wholesale industry, where payment terms are common, this kind of "spotless" cleanliness appeared even more unreasonable.

Yet Qianye Jewelry consistently classified Liuguang Zhijin as a "non-related party" in its annual reports. Multiple pieces of business registration information cross-verified that this number one customer was very likely Qianye Jewelry's own "family member." From June 2022 to August 2025, Liuguang Zhijin's supervisor was An Boxiu; and Qianye Jewelry's newly appointed chairman of the supervisory board on July 23, 2025 was also named An Boxiu. Public records show this person joined Qianye Jewelry in August 2003 and worked his way up from sales guide, store manager, and sales manager — an old employee who had been with the company for 23 years.

At the same time, from July 2024 to August 2025, Liuguang Zhijin's former actual controller Yang Kai held 99% of the shares, while the legal representative of the labor union committee of Beijing Qianye Jewelry Co., Ltd. was also named "Yang Kai."

Liuguang Zhijin may not be an isolated case. From 2020 to 2025, Beijing Jintai Bailong Jewelry Co., Ltd. appeared on Qianye Jewelry's top five customer list for six consecutive years, contributing cumulative sales of more than 148 million yuan over six years. Jintai Bailong's legal representative, Cai Xianbao, happened to serve as a supervisor of Liuguang Zhijin from June 23 to November 6, 2022; Jintai Bailong's historical business registration address was also consistent with Qianye Jewelry's historical office address. Cai Xianbao also had a branch under his name that was formerly called "Beijing Qianye Jewelry Co., Ltd. Sanhe Yanjiao Branch."

Also highly suspected of being an "insider" was Qianye Jewelry's fourth-largest customer in 2022, Shenzhen Zhenpinhui Jewelry Co., Ltd. Its shareholder and legal representative, Zheng Dakun, shared the same name as a core figure in multiple Qianye Jewelry branches.

Before the doubts on the customer side had cleared, similar shadows were also hidden in the supplier list. Beijing Kufen Culture Creativity Co., Ltd. (later renamed "Beijing Kufen Culture Technology Co., Ltd.") was Qianye Jewelry's fourth-largest supplier in 2024, with procurement amounting to 15.9811 million yuan; in 2025 it jumped to the second-largest supplier, with procurement amounting to 42.5781 million yuan. Business registration information shows that Kufen Culture's legal representative and second-largest shareholder, Li Meiqin, had long served as the legal representative or senior executive of multiple subsidiaries under Qianye Jewelry, and her business registration phone number also overlapped with those of multiple Qianye Jewelry subsidiaries and branches.

As of press time, the 10-trading-day reply deadline had long passed, and Qianye Jewelry had not publicly released a reply to the inquiry letter. Now that the actual controller has lost contact, this inquiry will most likely never receive an answer.

The high point of Qianye Jewelry when Anne Hathaway was its spokesperson

Qianye Jewelry was founded in 2001. Lin Mingjie, a member of China University of Geosciences' first jewelry major class, started the business in Beijing with his wife Gao Xiaosong and his sister Lin Huixian, focusing on the "KEER Qianye" brand and making gold, diamond, and inlaid jewelry. After more than a decade of arduous entrepreneurship and accumulation, on October 29, 2015, Qianye Jewelry listed on the New Third Board, with revenue that year of 1.113 billion yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders of 70.84 million yuan.

In 2016, Qianye Jewelry signed Hollywood star Anne Hathaway as its brand image spokesperson, and starting in 2015 it became the only official Chinese jewelry brand partner of New York Fashion Week for consecutive years. Marketing investment quickly showed results. In 2017, the company's performance reached its peak: revenue of 1.357 billion yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders of 94.28 million yuan, up 17.65% and 60.70% year-on-year respectively. It was the pinnacle of the company's development.

At that time, founder Lin Mingjie proudly said that a jewelry brand like Qianye that could roll out directly operated stores in more than 40 cities nationwide was "unparalleled" — as of the end of May 2015, 233 of the company's 240 stores were self-operated. After listing on the New Third Board, Qianye developed by leaps and bounds, and its capital ambitions swelled accordingly. In April 2017, Qianye Jewelry signed a coaching agreement with Northeast Securities and officially began its ChiNext IPO; in January 2022, the listing plan was changed to the Beijing Stock Exchange; but in September of the same year, the company signed a termination coaching agreement with Northeast Securities. Both attempts to sprint toward an A-share listing ended in failure.

But after the peak came a long downhill road caused by strategic missteps compounded by the gold cycle. In 2022, the company's revenue fell to 714 million yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders posted a loss of 5.6859 million yuan; revenue was 677 million yuan in 2023, briefly rebounded to 767 million yuan in 2024, then plunged to 438 million yuan in 2025, with revenue shrinking by nearly 70% over eight years.

An empty office and a public announcement revealing paralyzed governance

Northeast Securities' announcement on September 11 gave the most dangerous warning: first, actual controllers Lin Mingjie and Gao Xiaosong could not be reached; second, the board of directors could not convene normally — Qianye Jewelry's board currently had only three members, and after Lin Mingjie and Gao Xiaosong lost contact, it no longer met the requirement in the company's articles of association that "a meeting may be held only with the attendance of more than half of the directors"; third, the company could not fulfill its information disclosure obligations. Northeast Securities stated bluntly that the relevant risk matters "involve impacts on the company's ability to continue as a going concern and may trigger mandatory delisting," and that there were major defects in the company's governance mechanism.

The capital market reacted quickly. On September 10, Qianye Jewelry's stock closed down 28.57% at 0.85 yuan per share; on September 11, it plunged another 49.41% to 0.43 yuan per share, with a cumulative decline of 64% over two trading days, leaving total market value of only 47.48 million yuan, more than 98% below its peak market value in 2017. At the same time, the company's store products on e-commerce platforms such as JD.com, Tmall, and Douyin had all been taken down.

An employee who had already completed resignation procedures told Yicai that since being unable to contact the boss last week, work across the entire company had stalled and employees had left one after another. The company owed wages, with the longest arrears reaching half a year. A relevant person from the Gems and Jewelry Trade Association of China also told the media on September 11 that Lin Mingjie could not be reached either. A Yicai reporter went to Qianye Jewelry's headquarters office at No. 22A, West Dawang Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing. Opening the door, the entire office area was dark, with not a single staff member in sight; the front desk still had scattered recruitment documents and opened express deliveries, among which three delivery labels clearly bore the name of actual controller Lin Mingjie, and one was a "Notice of Early Loan Maturity" sent by a bank on September 8.

The spillover had already appeared on the periphery: on platforms such as Xiaohongshu, franchisees had put up "store closure clearance" posters, with regular-priced inlaid products discounted as low as 3.5 fold; some longtime customers also lamented Qianye's early designs — the brand's residual warmth remained, but the purchase links had disappeared.

What was worth vigilance was that before the explosion, the company's books still showed a "profitable" report card — the 2026 semi-annual report showed first-half net profit attributable to shareholders of 14.4791 million yuan. But beneath this appearance of profitability, regulators had already flashed a red light: on August 24, the National Equities Exchange and Quotations system issued an inquiry letter on the company's 2025 annual report, pointing directly at "inventory and liquidity" issues and requiring an explanation of slow-moving or accumulated inventory and post-period monetization arrangements. This was already the second consecutive year that regulators had inquired about the company's financial report.

A person in the listed company jewelry industry quoted by Lanjinger News said market rumors held that the two missing actual controllers may have left the country and had appeared in Thailand several days earlier, and that unpaid supplier amounts might reach the tens of millions of yuan — however, this claim has not been confirmed by Qianye or suppliers.

Qianye's fall: from "heavy self-operation" to more than 1.1 billion yuan in gold inventory

Qianye Jewelry's collapse was not caused by a single day's frost, but by the superposition of three forces.

The first was the depletion of cash flow and the "puffiness" of assets. Financial reports show that as of the end of June 2026, the company's monetary funds were only 933,700 yuan, down 74.58% from the end of 2025, of which about 540,000 yuan had been frozen due to litigation; of total assets of 1.589 billion yuan, inventory reached 1.535 billion yuan, accounting for 96.56% of total assets — this company had piled almost its entire fortune into a cabinet of gold jewelry. Even more striking was turnover: in the first half of 2026, inventory turnover was only 0.12 times, while in the same period competitors Lao Feng Xiang, Chow Tai Seng, and CHJ were 4.71 times, 1.31 times, and 1.96 times respectively. Qianye Jewelry's inventory turnover days exceeded 1,500 days. By contrast, Lao Feng Xiang was 97 days, CHJ was 165 days, and Chow Tai Seng was the longest at only 354 days.

In terms of structure, the latest financial report did not disclose the proportion of gold in inventory, but the 2024 financial report disclosed that more than 80% of Qianye Jewelry's 1.47 billion yuan in inventory was gold, and inventory aged more than three years accounted for 48%, mainly reserve gold — what was stuck in the warehouse was not just goods, but precipitated funds difficult to quickly monetize. The company's total liabilities were about 290 million yuan, including short-term borrowings of 133 million yuan. For a company with less than one million yuan in cash on its books but nearly 300 million yuan in liabilities, room to maneuver had already hit bottom.

The second was the "sharp turn" in channels. Qianye Jewelry started with a heavy self-operated model, and Lin Mingjie once clearly said he "would not consider franchising"; but after the pandemic, self-operated efficiency declined, and the company gradually transferred stores to franchisees. By the end of 2024, only one self-operated store and 95 franchised stores remained, and staffing contracted accordingly — there were 357 employees at the beginning of 2024, falling to 99 by year-end, and only 86 by the end of June 2026. At the same time, the company shifted resources toward e-commerce livestreaming. In 2024, e-commerce revenue was about 528 million yuan, accounting for nearly 70%; however, in November 2025, the new "gold tax" policy combined with high gold prices led the company to suspend low-price promotions and influencer livestreaming, and e-commerce revenue plummeted — in the first half of 2026, e-commerce was only 19.6325 million yuan, down 89.75% year-on-year, with its share falling to 9.22%. In a year when revenue nearly halved, the company was still able to keep net profit slightly rising by cutting personnel expenses: in 2025 it "restructured the organization and optimized personnel," reducing cash paid to employees by 19.37 million yuan year-on-year. This corroborates former employees' statements to the media that "if you ask to resign, you don't get the year-end bonus" and "compensation had always been irregular."

The third was the fragility of family governance. As of the end of June 2026, Lin Mingjie, Gao Xiaosong, and Lin Huixian together directly held 52.37% of shares, and the three were also the entire board of directors; Lin Mingjie simultaneously served as chairman, president, board secretary, and head of finance. After the board was streamlined from five people to three in May 2026, the three family members occupied all director seats; in the "important notice" of the semi-annual report, the company's responsible person, the person in charge of accounting work, and the person in charge of the accounting institution were all signed by Lin Mingjie alone.

The actual controller's personal credit was even more deeply tied to the company: as of August 27, Lin Mingjie's shares with cumulative restricted rights reached 25.201 million shares, accounting for 15.88% of total share capital, exceeding half of his personal shareholding. Once the core figure lost contact, decision-making, capital scheduling, and daily operations were instantly disconnected.

The industry cycle amplified the above risks. Data from the World Gold Council show that in the first half of 2026, China's gold jewelry demand was about 136 tonnes, down 30% year-on-year, while bar and coin demand was about 314 tonnes, setting a historical record for the first half — under high gold prices, consumers reduced gram weight and shifted to investment products, and gold jewelry retail generally came under pressure. A chain gold store franchisee quoted by Tonghuashun also mentioned that under high gold prices, the same stocking volume required more capital, and once goods accumulated, inventory and capital turnover pressures reinforced each other.

For the tottering Qianye Jewelry, can it "come back from the dead"? The key depends on several critical time points — whether it replies to the NEEQ inquiry letter, whether it triggers a determination of mandatory delisting, and whether the missing actual controller couple can appear. As of press time, neither Northeast Securities nor Qianye Jewelry had announced the reason for the founder couple's loss of contact, and employee wage arrears, supplier payments, and consumer shopping fund redemptions remained unresolved. A brand that once had annual revenue of more than 1 billion yuan and could afford international superstar Anne Hathaway as its spokesperson has now reached the edge of bankruptcy and closure. Its strategic missteps are lamentable. Have you ever bought Qianye Jewelry? What do you think about how it reached this point today? Feel free to discuss in the comments section.