A sky-high divorce settlement suddenly strikes Shennong Group

At the time of the full moon and pleasant moments during the Mid-Autumn Festival, He Zuxun, known as the "Pig King of Yunnan", is facing a turbulent period.

Within just two trading days, Shennong Group has successively disclosed two major bombshell events — core senior executive Dun Can resigns ahead of schedule, followed closely by actual controller He Zuxun being sued for divorce by his spouse, who claims to split the couple's joint property.

The news quickly rippled through the secondary market, sending the company's share price plummeting, and related topics shot to Baidu's hot search list.

As a leading local agricultural and animal husbandry enterprise in Yunnan, Shennong Group has built a complete industrial chain covering feed, breeding, livestock farming, slaughtering, and deep food processing over more than 20 years. At present, the enterprise is at a critical juncture of in-depth adjustment of the pig cycle, having to bear the fundamental pressure brought by the industry downturn while facing the external impact brought by this divorce dispute head-on.

Over the past 27 years, the growth of Shennong Group is highly tied to He Zuxun personally. Now, multiple factors such as the result of judicial mediation, allocation of personal energy, and the rhythm of enterprise development will all affect the subsequent development direction of the company.

The moment to test He Zuxun has arrived.

Double Blow

61-year-old He Zuxun did not have a peaceful Mid-Autumn Festival.

On the eve of the festival, the early resignation of the core senior executive, followed by the divorce lawsuit of the actual controller, has brought a double impact to Shennong Group.

On September 22, the company announced in its announcement that Dun Can, director and deputy general manager, resigned more than 1 year ahead of schedule. Dun Can has served in Shennong Group for 14 years, gradually rising from a grassroots technical position to a core senior executive in the farming business, personally experiencing and leading the whole process of the enterprise's pig farming scale expanding from 100,000 heads to 1 million heads. In 2025, his annual salary was 1.5319 million yuan, far exceeding that of He Zuxun, the actual controller.

Before the market fully digested the impact of the executive change, another major announcement came one after another.

After the market closed on September 23, Shennong Group (605296.SH) disclosed that He Zuxun, the controlling shareholder and actual controller, was sued by his spouse Luo Wanyu, who requested to dissolve the marriage relationship and divide the property.

On September 24, the company's share price plummeted by 9.82%, with a market value evaporation of 1.736 billion yuan in a single day.

As of the announcement date, He Zuxun directly holds 261 million shares of Shennong Group, accounting for 49.60% of the total share capital of the company, corresponding to a market value of nearly 8 billion yuan.

This is also the first divorce lawsuit of an actual controller involving huge amounts of listed company equity among A-share listed pig farming enterprises in recent years.

Nine years ago, in Kunming, where the headquarters of Shennong Group is located, there was also a much-watched sky-high divorce case — the divorce property division between Ruan Hongxian and Liu Qiong, the couple of the listed pharmacy enterprise Yixintang. In comparison, there are significant differences between the two wealthy family marriage breakups.

First of all, Ruan and Liu agreed on the property division plan in advance before making an announcement through the listed company, while this time Luo Wanyu filed the lawsuit voluntarily, and the case entered the court pre-trial mediation and subsequent litigation process, indicating that the two parties have not reached a prior consensus, and the final result depends entirely on the judicial procedure.

From the perspective of equity foundation, both Ruan and Liu held equity in the listed company before their divorce, and the divorce mainly dissolved the joint control relationship; while Luo Wanyu holds 0 shares in the listed company, and the dispute focuses on the equity registered under He Zuxun's name, with higher uncertainty.

The divorce lawsuit between He Zuxun and Luo Wanyu comes at the trough of the pig industry cycle, and the company has already recorded large losses with rising financial pressure, under this background, the outbreak of family disputes can easily induce a series of secondary risks.

The Key Figure

As a leading regional pig farming enterprise in Yunnan, Shennong Group has maintained a steady operation style in the past, and it is an agricultural and animal husbandry enterprise that has grown up highly relying on the industrial capability of its actual controller.

He Zuxun graduated from South China Agricultural University in 1988, majoring in veterinary medicine, and was assigned to work as a veterinarian at the Animal Husbandry Bureau of Luliang County, Qujing, Yunnan.

In 1992, he resigned to go into business and joined CP Group Kangdi (Shenzhen), known as the "Huangpu Military Academy" in the feed industry, responsible for feed sales.

This professional experience allowed him to systematically learn the full industrial chain operation ideas such as modern feed production and enterprise management, form a mature industrial layout concept, and lay the groundwork for building his industrial territory in the future.

He Zuxun's entrepreneurial path is similar to that of Lin Yinsun, the founder of Zhengbang Technology. Both of them started with the pig feed business and gradually extended to the pig farming industry.

In 1999, He Zuxun returned to Kunming to found Shennong Feed, cutting into the upstream of the pig industry;

In 2002, the company entered the pig farming field, adhered to the self-breeding and self-raising model, and promoted the expansion of farming business;

In 2005, it acquired Qujing Food Company, entered the pig slaughtering sector, built the local fresh food brand "Shennong Trustworthy Meat", and hedged industry cycles by internally consuming self-raised pigs;

In 2017, the core breeding pig farm was put into operation, and until the Chengjiang Food Factory was completed and put into production in 2023, the last industrial puzzle of deep food processing was filled.

Relying on the accumulation of front-line farming business, He Zuxun led the construction of the self-breeding and self-raising and full industrial chain system, building the core competitive moat of the company. He also serves as both chairman and general manager, deeply participating in the formulation and implementation of enterprise strategies, and has decisive voice in the process of enterprise development.

In the process of entrepreneurship and development, Shennong Group has obvious characteristics of a family enterprise: He Zuxun is the leader, and the He siblings participate in collaboration. Among them, He Yuebin and He Baojian were engaged in individual feed business in their early years, He Qiaoguan has working experience in accounting and finance, and the core family members formed the backbone force of the enterprise in the early entrepreneurial stage.

While He Zuxun's spouse Luo Wanyu did not participate in the company's entrepreneurial operation, she holds no position nor shares in the company.

As of the end of June, He Qiaoguan, He Baojian, He Yuebin and Zhengdao Venture Capital collectively hold 36.81% of the company's equity. Even in the extreme scenario where He Zuxun's equity is split in half, the He family will still firmly control Shennong Group.

Tough Times

In May 2021, after Shennong Group was successfully listed on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, it expanded production capacity and promoted the expansion of pig business against the cycle.

The company raised nearly 2.1 billion yuan through IPO, most of which was invested in 7 piglet expansion projects, 3 high-quality pig fattening projects, a 500,000-ton annual output feed and biosecurity project, and a project with an annual slaughter capacity of 500,000 pigs.

In the year of listing, domestic pig prices fell from a high level, and the operational pressure of the pig farming industry gradually emerged. Even so, Shennong Group still achieved steady profitability.

In 2023, the phenomenon of oversupply in the pig farming industry became prominent, and Shennong Group also recorded its first loss since listing, with a total attributable net profit loss of 401 million yuan for the whole year.

In 2024, the industry saw a phased upturn, the company's annual pig slaughter volume reached 2.2715 million heads. Coupled with the cost advantage brought by self-breeding and self-raising, the company turned losses into profits in one fell swoop, realizing an attributable net profit of 687 million yuan, the best performance since listing.

However, industry risks came much faster than expected.

In 2025, pig prices fluctuated sharply like a roller coaster, and the industry was generally under pressure. The company's annual pig slaughter volume soared to 3.0742 million heads, but due to the higher volume and lower price, the full-year attributable net profit dropped to 339 million yuan, down 50.65% year on year.

In the first half of 2026, pig prices continued to stay below the industry's farming cost line. Shennong Group achieved operating revenue of 2.489 billion yuan, down 11.02% year on year, with an attributable net profit loss of 809 million yuan.

In such an environment, coupled with the departure of core senior executives and the personal marriage change of the actual controller, Shennong Group is in the most difficult stage since its listing.

Next, how to resolve all kinds of risks will test He Zuxun's coping ability.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Zebra Consumption" (ID: banmaxiaofei), written by Shen Tuo, published with authorization from 36Kr.