An aside about a controlling shareholder has forced Bestore — once touted as China’s “high‑end snack” champion — back into the spotlight and sharpened investors’ doubts about its prospects. On February 3 the company disclosed that execution notices had been issued against its controlling shareholder, Ningbo Hanyi, and three individuals linked to the group for an outstanding trust claim totalling around RMB 280 million. Those proceedings follow the transfer of related creditor rights between trust companies and leave a meaningful portion of Ningbo Hanyi’s Bestore stock at risk of forced sale.
The immediate mechanics are straightforward and familiar to Chinese markets: Ningbo Hanyi borrowed from Yunnan Trust in January 2024 — three loans amounting to RMB 300 million — and pledged 53.72% of the Bestore shares it holds (about 75.9 million shares). After Yunnan Trust transferred the debt to Guotong Trust in May 2025, the creditor applied to the Wuhan court to execute when repayment lapsed; by the announcement date some 2.09 million of Ningbo Hanyi’s shares were already frozen. Bestore warned that compulsory execution of pledged shares could change the company’s ownership picture, even as it insisted daily operations remain unaffected.
The governance stress compounds an operational slump. Bestore has issued a 2025 profit warning, forecasting a net loss attributable to shareholders of RMB 120–160 million and an adjusted loss of RMB 150–190 million. Management blames a deliberate pruning of underperforming outlets, a reduction in selling prices and product‑mix changes that squeezed margins, plus lower interest and subsidy income. The chain closed 283 outlets and opened 65 in the third quarter of 2025, leaving it with 2,227 stores and a net reduction of 218 locations during the period.
The debt and weak earnings come after a public, failed attempt to bring in strategic capital. In mid‑2025 Ningbo Hanyi signed an agreement with Guangzhou Light Industry to transfer some shares as a means to resolve debt pressure, and the company later disclosed negotiations to transfer control to Wuhan Changjiang International Trade Group, a move that would have put state capital at the helm. Those negotiations collapsed by October 2025 when the share transfer agreement failed to meet its conditions, leaving control with Ningbo Hanyi and its founding team and the firm without the intended strategic lifeline.
The stakes extend beyond Bestore’s immediate cash flows. High ratios of pledged shares are a recurring fault line in Chinese equity markets: they create the risk of forced disposals, sharp share price falls, and contagion to suppliers, franchisees and lenders. For Bestore, the combination of a controlling shareholder with sizeable overdue debt, a retreating store footprint and weakening margins means the company’s strategic options are narrower than they were a year ago. Unless it secures new capital, restructures the shareholder debt, or materially improves same‑store sales and margin, the business faces a prolonged period of vulnerability amid intensifying competition in the packaged‑snacks market.
For international readers the episode is a window on three broader realities: the limits of retail upscaling in a slower consumer cycle, the governance risks tied to share‑pledging practices in China, and the difficulty of translating a strong brand into a sustainable, asset‑light model. Bestore’s management has argued the company’s operations continue normally; the market will be watching whether that assertion holds as creditors press their claims and as competition from e‑commerce, private label snacks and discount chains intensifies.