The well-known jewelry brand Chiba Jewelry (833585) is currently embroiled in a storm of founder disappearance and business shutdown.

On September 14th, Economic Observer reporters called multiple Chiba jewelry stores located in Beijing as consumers, and they all stated that they were franchise stores. Some store employees have stated that they will change their brand in the near future and will no longer represent Chiba Jewelry; Another store clerk stated that most of Chiba Jewelry's popular designs are out of stock and there are not many styles left.

On September 10th, Northeast Securities, the main brokerage firm of Chiba Jewelry, issued a risk warning announcement, stating that they were unable to contact the founders, Lin Mingjie and Gao Xiaosong, through WeChat, phone, email, or by visiting their office location. On September 11th, First Financial called the China Jewelry and Jade Industry Association as a franchisee, and the relevant personnel of the association responded that they were also unable to contact Lin Mingjie himself. At the same time, Chiba Jewelry has removed all official store products from e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and Tmall.

Chiba Jewelry is a jewelry brand founded in Beijing in 2001, specializing in gold, diamonds, and inlaid jewelry. It was listed on the New Third Board in 2015. In its most glorious year of 2017, its annual revenue reached 1.357 billion yuan, with a net profit attributable to the parent company of 94.2796 million yuan. In those years, it had more than 200 directly operated stores across the country and even invited Hollywood star Anne Hathaway to endorse it, with a high brand reputation at one point.

Two former employees close to the core management team told the Economic Observer that before the founder went missing, there were already cases of delayed payment of employee salaries within the company.

Chiba Jewelry's financial report also shows that its monetary funds have shrunk from 104 million yuan in 2016 to 933700 yuan in the first half of 2026, and short-term borrowings have remained at a level of over 100 million yuan for the past four years.

Turn

Economic Observer reporters reviewed Chiba Jewelry's annual financial reports and found that 2017 was its peak year of performance, followed by fluctuating performance thereafter. Starting from 2024, the scale, volume, and market response of Chiba Jewelry have shown signs of recovery, and there has been a significant shift in business structure during this year.

According to the financial report, Chiba Jewelry achieved a revenue of 767 million yuan that year, a year-on-year increase of 13.22%; The net profit attributable to the parent company reached 25.09 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 311.6%.

But more financial data exposed the operational problems faced by Chiba Jewelry, which also laid hidden dangers for the subsequent business shutdown.

This year, its non gold jewelry revenue decreased sharply from 166 million yuan in the previous year to 52.9662 million yuan, while its gold jewelry revenue increased from 493 million yuan to 703 million yuan. Behind this is the overall trend facing the industry: consumers' interest in non gold jewelry such as diamonds continues to decline.

For early Chiba Jewelry, gold jewelry and non gold jewelry each accounted for almost half of the revenue. But later on, the revenue contribution of gold jewelry increased year by year, and by 2025, its proportion had reached 95.45%. The revenue of non gold jewelry was only 19.801 million yuan, accounting for 4.55%.

Chiba Jewelry is betting on gold jewelry and taking a low price route.

In 2024, Chiba Jewelry's gross profit margin sharply decreased from 22.55% the previous year to 15.47%. Chiba Jewelry stated in its 2024 annual report that it has expanded its online sales and the proportion of low gross profit gold product sales has increased.

Wang Li worked at Chiba Jewelry for nearly a year and resigned in the first half of this year. According to him, in 2024, Chiba Jewelry collaborated closely with Dabo, and a partnership with a top anchor resulted in GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) reaching over 100 million yuan.

Wang Li said that the products of Chiba Jewelry are already priced low, and coupled with the various expenses of cooperation with Dabo, the company's internal review found that this method of cooperation with Dabo has hardly created profits.

In 2024, the net operating cash flow of Chiba Jewelry was -72.226 million yuan. Management expenses and sales expenses decreased by 23.50% and 57.96% respectively year-on-year, with a total reduction of approximately 62.67 million yuan. The significant increase in net profit back then was also due to cost compression.

In 2025, Chiba Jewelry voluntarily suspended its cooperation with the Dabo channel. In the annual report inquiry letter for August 2026, Chiba Jewelry explicitly listed "suspension of broadcasting business" as one of the reasons for the decline in revenue in 2025. In 2025, Chiba Jewelry's annual revenue was only 438 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 42.95%.

Wang Li introduced that in August 2025, the senior management of Chiba Jewelry suddenly announced a price increase of 10% to 20%. At that time, the retail price of branded gold jewelry was already at a high level of over 1000 yuan/gram, which directly raised the price of individual products.

According to the financial report of Chiba Jewelry, the gross profit margin of Chiba Jewelry in the first half of 2025 was 16.54%, and the gross profit margin for the whole year of 2025 will rise to 20.54%.

Although the price increase decision has raised the gross profit margin, it has affected sales revenue. Wang Li stated that after the price increase of the product, there was a decline in sales in September 2025. At this time, as "Double Eleven" was approaching, employee morale was low, especially in the e-commerce department where the executive questioned the senior management's decision to raise prices, and work cooperation enthusiasm began to decline.

At this time, the external market also experienced severe fluctuations. In October 2025, the gold price suddenly turned downwards after a continuous surge. On October 21, 2025, international spot gold plummeted by over 6% during trading, marking the largest intraday decline since 2013, and the single gram price of branded gold jewelry also decreased accordingly.

This trend directly disrupts consumers' purchasing rhythm. Those who were originally hesitant about whether to "get in the car" in the upward channel of gold prices have turned to wait-and-see when they see the price turn downwards, which has had another significant impact on the sales of Chiba Jewelry.

Loss of hematopoietic capacity

The instability of the company's performance is reflected in the delayed and unpaid salaries of its employees.

Wang Li was already owed half a year's salary when he resigned, and it has not been recovered yet. As early as October 2025, Wang Li's salary was not paid on schedule. At that time, the senior management's response was that there was a problem with a bank loan.

Xu Ming worked at Chiba Jewelry for 6 years and resigned in the first half of this year. She was owed nearly 5 months' salary before leaving. The response from the company's human resources department regarding unpaid wages is: there is no funding available, we need to wait for the funds to be received. Xu Ming stated that before 2024, the company had also experienced delayed salary payments.

Wang Li learned from other employees that the company was supposed to receive a large bank loan in August, but later there were issues with the bank's approval and the loan failed.

From the financial data of Chiba Jewelry, it can also be seen that its self generating ability is weakened, relying on external blood transfusions to "prolong its life".

As of June 2026, Chiba Jewelry had short-term borrowings of 133 million yuan, total assets of 1.589 billion yuan, and only 933700 yuan of monetary funds remaining. The largest asset on the books is inventory, which accounts for 96.54% of total assets and amounts to 1.535 billion yuan. According to the disclosure criteria of the 2024 annual report, more than 80% of this inventory is gold, and the rest is diamonds and inlaid jewelry products. The turnover rate of this batch of inventory is extremely low, with only 0.12 times in the first half of 2026 and 0.23 times for the whole year of 2025, with a turnover of 1500 days.

In the view of the former employees mentioned above, the high gross profit business is constantly shrinking, and the profit margin of gold jewelry is limited due to price transparency. Chiba Jewelry has not found a new way out in this round of business structure changes.

Chiba Jewelry has also attempted to escape from its predicament. Wang Li and Xu Ming belong to different departments, and they both told the Economic Observer that in the second half of 2025, Chiba Jewelry will intensively recruit multiple department cadres. The company's internal understanding of this move is to promote the transformation of Chiba Jewelry, or more precisely, to further expand its scale.

Wang Li and Xu Ming both said that they learned from many employees of Chiba Jewelry that the company has started to inventory its assets. In July and August, employees saw a batch of high-end office computers being collected.

Wang Li learned that Lin Mingjie had also sought funding from investors, hoping to obtain relief funds by selling some equity, but ultimately failed.

On September 14th and 15th, the Economic Observer sent interview outlines and made phone calls to Chiba Jewelry regarding the aforementioned unpaid wages and seeking financing, but did not receive any response or answer.

(At the request of the interviewee, Wang Li and Xu Ming are given pseudonyms)

(Author Ye Xinran)