Jixiangju, one of China’s largest makers of pickles and ready-to-eat condiments, has agreed to be taken over by private equity firm FountainVest after nearly five years of stuttering IPO preparations. The transaction, announced in a regulatory filing in Chongqing, will transfer roughly 92% of the company’s equity to a FountainVest vehicle, leaving founder Ding Wenjun — who once held a controlling stake — largely cashed out.
The deal marks a sharp turn for a company that had been widely expected to follow peers into the public markets. Jixiangju has been under listing guidance for almost five years; instead of a final push to an IPO, its owners chose a private sale that will make FountainVest the ultimate controller while enabling earlier investors including Sequoia and Tencent to monetise their holdings.
The sale is as much about industry timing as it is about personality. China’s Sichuan-style condiment sector has already produced listed champions: Qianhe and Tianwei reached public markets a decade and half ago, establishing a benchmark that Jixiangju had been preparing to match. Investors had expected the three to converge on capital markets; instead the consolidation behind private equity changes the roadmap for sector consolidation.
Ding’s personal story helps explain the brand’s ascent. A self-made entrepreneur from Meishan, Ding began selling vegetables at 17 and later invested his savings to found Jixiangju 26 years ago. Under his stewardship the company expanded from local pickle maker to a diversified condiment group, growing revenue from about RMB 123m in 2010 to nearly RMB 989m in 2022 and building several single-product lines with annual sales above RMB 100m.
Jixiangju’s capital history is a study in successive ownership cycles. South Korea’s CJ Foods entered as a strategic investor, later increasing its stake to about 60% after multiple placements. CJ eventually exited in 2023, selling to a consortium that included Sequoia China, Tencent and Jixiangju’s management; Sequoia at one point held roughly 23% before this latest transaction. FountainVest’s takeover is therefore the latest chapter in the company’s repeated re-capitalisations.
The company’s industrial credentials are strong: it helped draft national standards for pickled vegetables, hosts a national processing technology research centre and claims top rankings in the fast-growing “rice-accompanying” condiment segment. Market-tracking data place Jixiangju behind only Fuling Zhacai in the broader preserved-vegetable category and show its “Baoxiafan” brand topping online sales for several years.
Why this matters beyond a private-equity swap is threefold. First, FountainVest brings a track record of operationally oriented deals — it has invested in names such as pharmacy chain Laobaixing and food franchisees — which could accelerate Jixiangju’s expansion and a future public listing. Second, an ownership change alters competitive dynamics in a sector where rival Tianwei has already used distribution pressure to limit Jixiangju’s shelf access, illustrating how channel politics can shape corporate strategy in China’s consumer goods market. Third, the deal underlines the appetite of buyout firms for regional consumer brands that have national potential but face scaling or governance bottlenecks.
The risks are material. Private equity ownership can provide speed and capital but also brings a focus on near-term exits and efficiency drives that may unsettle supply chains and distributors. Jixiangju will need to manage relationships with upstream cooperative vegetable suppliers, retain its innovation and R&D credentials, and navigate competition from established neighbours whose own public-market discipline could prove unforgiving.
For Ding, the sale represents a personal handover: a founder who once spoke of building a “century brand” with RMB 10bn in revenue is now letting a financial operator steer the path to that ambition. For the sector, FountainVest’s emergence as a controlling owner may reframe how China’s condiment champions scale — not solely via public equity but through private capital that takes firms off the IPO treadmill to retool and relaunch them for the next stage of growth.