"Six Walnuts" has invested 1 billion yuan to become a limited partner.
On the evening of October 16th, listed company Yangyuan Beverage Group Co., Ltd. issued an announcement stating that the company will use its own funds to increase the capital of Wuhu Well - known Quanheng Investment Management Partnership (Limited Partnership) by 1 billion yuan. After the capital increase is completed, the total scale of the fund will increase from 3 billion yuan to 4 billion yuan.
When it comes to Yangyuan Beverage, people may be a bit unfamiliar with it. However, its flagship product, "Six Walnuts", is well - known to everyone. The advertising slogan "If you use your brain often, drink more Six Walnuts" has almost accompanied the growth of a generation.
Similar to most listed consumer companies, Yangyuan Beverage has also been seeking new growth points by participating in private equity investment in recent years. A typical example is that in December 2023, through Quanheng Investment, it invested 1.6 billion yuan in Changkong Group, a leading semiconductor company.
This "cross - border investment" has also boosted Yangyuan Beverage's stock price recently. At the end of September, Changkong Group announced the completion of its shareholding system reform. The market expects that it will submit an application for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board to the China Securities Regulatory Commission before the second quarter of 2026, with a potential fundraising scale of 30 billion - 40 billion yuan. As soon as the news came out, Yangyuan Beverage's stock price rose immediately, increasing by more than 60% in a week and hitting a record high. Although it has slightly declined recently, it still has a market value of 36.5 billion yuan, remaining at a historical high.
Perhaps the company's decision to continue to increase its investment in Quanheng Investment this time is due to the "invisible benefits" beyond financial returns brought by the investment.
A 30 - year national beverage brand ventures into investment
Yangyuan Beverage's predecessor was Hebei Yuanyuan Health - care Beverage, jointly established in 1997 by Hengshui Electric Power Industrial Corporation and the Labor Service Company of Hengshui Electric Power Bureau. However, due to poor management, the company was merged by Hebei Laobaigan Group less than two years later. However, the involvement of Laobaigan Group did not bring substantial improvement to Yangyuan Beverage's development.
The turning point came in 2005. At that time, 58 employees led by Yao Kuizhang acquired all the property rights of Yangyuan Beverage from Laobaigan Group at a total price of 3.0949 million yuan.
In the same year, after privatization, Yangyuan Beverage launched the "Six Walnuts" brand. Relying on the sales channels of Hengshui Laobaigan, it quickly expanded into the market and achieved sales of 30 million yuan in just one year.
In 2009, the company further focused on the "brain - boosting and intelligence - enhancing" function as the product's selling point and launched the well - known classic advertising slogan "If you use your brain often, drink more Six Walnuts". At the same time, Yangyuan Beverage invested 60 million yuan to invite famous host Chen Luyu as the brand spokesperson and aired the advertisement during prime time on CCTV.
This series of marketing measures promoted the company's rapid performance growth. Public data shows that from 2008 to 2011, Yangyuan Beverage's annual revenue increased by nearly 100%. By 2015, the company's operating income reached 9.117 billion yuan, and the net profit was about 2.62 billion yuan, hitting a historical peak.
However, since then, the company's revenue growth has shown signs of weakness. From 2016 to 2021, the year - on - year changes in Yangyuan Beverage's revenue were - 2.38%, - 13.03%, 5.21%, - 8.41%, - 40.65%, and 55.99% respectively. There were only two years of positive growth in six years, and the revenue scale in 2021 was only 76% of that in 2015.
Facing the sluggish growth of its main business, Yangyuan Beverage began to actively explore new growth curves. Similar to the choices of many listed consumer product companies, in addition to expanding product categories and marketing channels, the company also started to venture into the private equity investment field.
According to data from CVSource, as early as 2015, Yangyuan Beverage invested as a limited partner (LP) in the Gaosheng Kangrui Fund managed by Yuanchao Venture Capital. The fund has a scale of 138 million yuan and mainly invests in high - tech, energy - saving and environmental protection, new energy, medical and other fields. The invested companies include Haotai Intelligence, Hongye Electric, and Fengze Co., Ltd.
In May 2021, Yangyuan Beverage jointly launched Quanheng Investment (the main target of this capital increase) with Well - known Fund. The initial scale of the fund is 3 billion yuan. Among them, Yangyuan Beverage subscribed and contributed 2.997 billion yuan as an LP, and Well - known Fund contributed 3 million yuan and served as the general partner (GP).
As of now, Quanheng Investment has invested in seven companies, including Changkong Group, Zhenliang Intelligence, Hengchuan New Energy, Ruipu Lanjun, Ziguang Huazhi, Ziwei Yutong, and Xinchao Media, with a total investment of 2.954 billion yuan.
In August this year, Yangyuan Beverage released its semi - annual report for 2025. In the first half of the year, the company achieved operating income of 2.465 billion yuan, a year - on - year decrease of 16.19%; and the net profit attributable to the parent company was 744 million yuan, a year - on - year decrease of 27.76%.
Although the performance is not satisfactory, the company has a large amount of cash flow. The financial report shows that the net cash flow generated from operating activities is 377 million yuan, and the balance of monetary funds at the end of the reporting period reached 1.459 billion yuan.
The abundant cash flow may be the confidence for Yangyuan Beverage to continuously invest in the primary market.
Listed consumer companies are becoming LPs
Nowadays, cross - border investment has become an important strategic path for listed consumer companies to seek growth.
Take the beverage market where Yangyuan Beverage is located as an example. Recently, Mixue Bingcheng announced that it will acquire a 53% stake in "Fresh Beer Fulu's" for 297 million yuan, officially entering the on - tap fresh beer market. In addition, the two major dairy giants, Mengniu and Yili, have also recently established venture capital investment fund companies respectively.
In fact, as early as 2019, Yili established CVC Jianling Capital. As of now, Jianling Capital manages funds with a scale of over 4 billion yuan, including Jianling Venture Capital Fund Phase 1, Jianling Mother Fund, Jianling Innovation Seed Fund, and US dollar venture capital fund.
On the other hand, Mengniu established its wholly - owned incubator platform and the only CVC fund, Mengniu Venture Capital, in 2021. The institution mainly conducts industrial investment around Mengniu's nutrition and food ecosystem, with investment directions covering the elderly economy, nutrition, health life science and technology, biotechnology, and synthetic biological manufacturing.
If we expand our view to the entire consumer goods market, the number of participants is countless.
Just yesterday (October 16th), Yiyi Co., Ltd., the leading company in the pet hygiene and care industry, issued an announcement stating that in order to continuously improve the company's investment layout in the pet industry, it plans to contribute 70.2 million yuan to participate in the establishment of a venture capital fund, with a contribution ratio of 44.8448%. The fund manager is Jinding Capital.
Two days ago, Yiyi Co., Ltd. issued a suspension notice, stating that it is planning to issue shares and pay cash to acquire assets and raise supporting funds. The target of the transaction is the well - known pet food brand "Gao Ye's".
Even earlier, Qiaqia Foods participated as an LP in the establishment of Changsha Lvye Fruit Equity Investment Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership). Qiaqia's investment activities can be traced back to 2021. At that time, the company and its wholly - owned subsidiary Chuangwei participated as LPs in three funds and indirectly invested in the popular tea brand Shu Yi Shao Xiancao. In December of the same year, it jointly invested with five institutions including Shanghai Fosun High - tech to establish Fosun Qiaqia Technology and Consumption Private Equity Investment Fund, investing in the consumption and technology fields.
It is not difficult to find from the above cases that the "starting points" of many established consumer companies venturing into the investment field are concentrated around 2021, when consumer investment in the primary market was at its hottest. Although traditional catering and snack brands are no longer the mainstream of consumer investment, the pace of industrial capital has not stopped.
This article is from the WeChat official account "LP Spectrum", author: Wang Manhua, published by 36Kr with permission.