With her fortune shrinking by 48 billion yuan, can Zong Fuli turn things around with KELLYONE?
Recently, the 2026 New Fortune 500 Richest List was released. Zong Fuli's latest net worth stands at 77 billion yuan, a staggering drop of 48 billion yuan from 125 billion yuan in 2025.
Zong Fuli, whose wealth has shrunk, has been making frequent moves lately. According to media reports, at the end of May, KELLYONE's first new product "Guoran Bobo" launched after she went independent quietly entered the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai market, drawing widespread attention.
The packaging information of Guoran Bobo shows that the entrusting party of the product is Hangzhou Hongsheng Group. Public records indicate that the full name of Hongsheng Group is Hongsheng Beverage Group Co., Ltd., where Zong Fuli serves as the legal representative, and it is widely regarded as the core enterprise under her control. Product details reflect a clear "de-Wahaha" orientation. On Dingdong Maicai, KELLYONE Guoran Bobo is available in two flavors: grapefruit and lemon.
Records show that Zong Fuli has been using the English name KELLY since she attended high school and university in California, USA. The product name being tied to her English name demonstrates her high expectations for this new offering.
Apart from launching new products, Hongsheng Group has recently registered multiple trademarks including "Ban Jian Shi Guang", "Yue Jian Wen Rou" and "Shan · Xun Cui".
Can Zong Fuli turn around her declining fortune with KELLYONE? Industry observers largely believe it is an extremely challenging task. The new product lacks the well-established brand recognition of Wahaha, and there is still a long way to go for it to succeed in the market.
A Sharp Plunge in Wealth
Zong Fuli, whose net worth has plummeted, was born in 1982. In 1996, when she was just in the second year of junior high school, she asked her parents to send her to study in the United States. In 2004, after graduating from Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, she immediately joined Wahaha, starting her career in production management.
Since 2007, Zong Fuli has taken full independent charge of Hongsheng Group. Under her leadership, Hongsheng Group has grown into a full-industry-chain beverage manufacturing enterprise. Up to now, Hongsheng Group operates 16 production bases across China, with 44 subsidiaries and 104 world-class modern beverage production lines, having been repeatedly listed in the "Top 500 Private Enterprises in China" and "Top 500 Private Manufacturing Enterprises in China".
On December 9, 2021, the official website of Wahaha Group announced that Zong Fuli was appointed as the company's Vice Chairperson and General Manager, responsible for daily operations, effective immediately. She would work alongside the company's Chairperson Zong Qinghou to inject lasting vitality into the steady development of Wahaha.
After the appointment was made public, her father Zong Qinghou publicly stated: "I now want to gradually step back from the front line, let the young people take charge of the work, and I will stay behind to oversee and offer guidance. This way, we can nurture the next generation and ensure the long-term prosperity of the enterprise."
This signal was widely interpreted by the public as Zong Fuli being designated to succeed Zong Qinghou.
In 2022, Zong Fuli appeared on the New Fortune 500 Richest List for the first time, listed alongside her father Zong Qinghou, with a combined net worth of 66 billion yuan.
In 2023, the combined wealth of Zong Fuli and Zong Qinghou shrank to 60 billion yuan.
Before the 2024 Spring Festival, Zong Qinghou was admitted to Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital affiliated with the Zhejiang University School of Medicine due to severe lung cancer. At 10:30 on February 25, 2024, he passed away at the age of 79 after unsuccessful medical treatment.
In 2024, Zong Fuli appeared alone on the New Fortune 500 Richest List with a net worth of 80.83 billion yuan. In 2025, her net worth further rose to 125 billion yuan. However, in 2026, her net worth plunged to 77 billion yuan, a decrease of 48 billion yuan compared to 2025.
A Troubled Succession
Behind Zong Fuli's shrinking net worth lies the fact that her leadership of Wahaha has been far from smooth.
Even before she officially took over as the Chairperson of Wahaha Group, a "resignation controversy" had already broken out.
On July 15, 2024, Zong Fuli suddenly announced her resignation from Wahaha Group, citing "internal disagreements" and "excessive management resistance". Just one week later, on July 22, she resumed her position following negotiations among all relevant parties.
According to media reports, since August 2024, some employees have reported that Wahaha Group required them to sign new labor contracts, terminating their existing contracts with Wahaha Group and entering into new contracts with Hongsheng Group, which is controlled by Zong Fuli. After the contract re-signing, the employees' "profit-sharing stake" benefits they previously enjoyed at Wahaha Group were revoked.
However, these radical reform measures triggered strong pushback. Dozens of employees took Zong Fuli and Wahaha to court, requesting the court to rule that the relevant equity repurchase was invalid.
A lawsuit exposed at the end of 2024 greatly shocked the public, severely damaging Zong Qinghou's long-standing public image as a "down-to-earth billionaire who remained faithful to his wife all his life and spent no more than 50,000 yuan a year".
Media reports stated that in December of that year, Zong Fuli, the Chairperson of Wahaha, was sued in Hong Kong. The plaintiffs were Zong Jichang, Zong Jieli and Zong Jisheng. The plaintiffs' lawyer confirmed that the three were Zong Fuli's half-siblings. The three plaintiffs claimed that as Zong Qinghou's children, they were entitled to equal inheritance rights or beneficial interests under the relevant trust, demanding to "recover the trust funds". Approximately 1.1 million US dollars had been transferred out of the involved account by May 2024, leaving a remaining balance of about 1.8 billion US dollars.
On August 1, 2025, the High Court of Hong Kong issued an "interim injunction", prohibiting Zong Fuli from using or transferring the approximately 1.8 billion US dollars of assets held in the HSBC bank account. On September 26, 2025, the High Court of Hong Kong published relevant documents on its official website, rejecting the application for leave to appeal filed by the defendants represented by Zong Fuli in the summons. On December 23, the miscellaneous case involving the "three Zong siblings" and Zong Fuli held its hearing.
Zong Fuli also attempted to transfer Wahaha's trademarks, which caused a huge public outcry.
On January 21, 2025, Wahaha Group filed an application to transfer 387 "Wahaha" series trademarks to Hangzhou Wahaha Food Co., Ltd., and issued a statement on February 12 explaining that the move was to fulfill historical capital contribution obligations. However, subsequent reports indicated that the trademark transfer had been suspended.
On October 10 last year, media reports revealed that Zong Fuli had resigned from her positions as the company's legal representative, director and chairperson at Wahaha Group on September 12, with the relevant procedures approved by the group's shareholders' meeting and board of directors.
Nevertheless, up to now, Zong Fuli is still the second-largest shareholder of Wahaha Group, holding a 29.4% stake.
Can KELLYONE Be a Lifeline?
After stepping down as the Chairperson of Wahaha Group, Zong Fuli accelerated her pace of building her own independent business.
On September 13, 2025, an internal document titled "Notice on Conducting Communication Work with Distributors for the 2026 Sales Year" from Hangzhou Wahaha Honghui Food & Beverage Co., Ltd. was leaked: the company decided to adopt the new brand "Wa Xiao Zong" starting from the new 2026 sales year.
However, distributors showed little interest in the new brand Wa Xiao Zong, and it has not gained significant market traction so far.
Since September 2025, multiple companies whose previous names were associated with Wahaha have undergone industrial and commercial changes, with their enterprise names changed to include "Hongsheng". Zong Fuli serves as a senior executive in these companies. For example, on September 2, "Nanyang Wahaha Changsheng Beverage Co., Ltd." was renamed "Nanyang Hongsheng Hengfeng Beverage Co., Ltd.", where Zong Fuli holds the position of director.
Hongsheng Group has also intensively registered trademarks such as "Shan Xun Cui", "Shan Qing Bai", "Yue Jian Wen Rou" and "Ban Jian Shi Guang" since April 2026, all of which are currently under substantive examination.
At the end of May this year, KELLYONE, which had been inactive for a year, made a quiet comeback, launching the new fruit soda product "Guoran Bobo".
KELLYONE is a brand founded by Zong Fuli in 2016 using her English name "Kelly". It has previously launched products such as the tea beverage "Yi Cha" and the sparkling water "Shengqi Bobo", and has invited celebrity endorsements in the past.
Up to now, Guoran Bobo still remains a niche new product with limited market scale.
Practitioners in the food industry point out that competition in the current beverage market is extremely fierce, making it very difficult for Hongsheng Group to develop a new best-selling product.
At the same time, Zong Fuli has started to optimize the enterprises under her control and reorganize her distributor network.
The National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System shows that on February 24 this year, Hangzhou Wahaha Precision Machinery Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Wahaha Precision Machinery") established a liquidation group, with Yan Xuefeng serving as the head of the liquidation group, officially launching the creditor announcement and liquidation procedures. The company was dissolved following a shareholders' resolution.
Media reports stated that some employees of Wahaha Precision Machinery received a "Termination of Labor Contract Notice", and their labor contracts with Wahaha Precision Machinery were terminated on February 28.
It is worth noting that Yan Xuefeng is regarded as Zong Fuli's trusted core subordinate. He joined the management and took up an important position in 2007, right after Zong Fuli took charge of Hongsheng Group. Up to now, Yan Xuefeng still serves as a senior executive in multiple ongoing enterprises, including Wahaha Commercial Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Wahaha Qili Food Group Co., Ltd. and Xinxiang Hongsheng Beverage Co., Ltd.
Information from Tianyancha shows that Wahaha Precision Machinery was established in 2011, focusing on the special equipment manufacturing industry. The company's controlling shareholder is Wahaha Commercial Co., Ltd., with Zong Fuli as the actual controller.
As part of the "legacy" left by Zong Qinghou to Wahaha, Wahaha Precision Machinery once undertook the important mission of promoting the group's intelligent transformation.
In 2019, China Business News reported that in recent years, Wahaha had established scientific research institutions such as a precision machinery company and an electromechanical research institute, dedicated to the research of intelligent beverage production lines and the industrialization of intelligent equipment. It successfully developed conveying and packaging machinery including high-position high-speed palletizers, sleeve labeling machines, labeling machines and bottle arranging machines.
At the 2nd China International Import Expo and the 3rd China (Zhejiang) - Europe (Germany) Digital Economy and High-Tech Industry High-Level Matchmaking Conference, Zong Qinghou stated that on the basis of adhering to its core business, Wahaha would take the beverage industry as its foundation, use industrial digitalization as a tool to expand into the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and focus on developing and innovating in the fields of industrial robots and high-end intelligent equipment.
In terms of staff size, the number of employees at Wahaha Precision Machinery has shown a slight downward trend. Data disclosed in the company's 2023 and 2024 annual reports shows that the number of employees paying social insurance was 281 and 261 respectively, a reduction of 20 people over the two years.
Some analysts point out that the dissolution of Wahaha Precision Machinery reflects Zong Fuli's strategy of focusing on the core food and beverage business, with the intention of divesting non-core businesses to address issues such as scattered resources and insufficient synergy caused by previous diversified expansion.
In terms of distributors, recent media reports have revealed that Hongsheng Group internally issued a joint assessment notice, removing 78 cooperative distributors in a single day, and 1191 other channel partners received written rectification warnings.
Amid a series of business upheavals, can Zong Fuli's net worth return to its previous peak or even reach new heights? Radar Finance will continue to follow the developments closely.
This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Radar Finance", written by Zhou Hui, edited by Shen Hai, and published with authorization from 36Kr.