Xu Jiajun

Xu Jiajun is chairman of Gemdale. On 27 May 2026, Gemdale held an online results briefing for fiscal 2025 and the first quarter of 2026; besides Xu Jiajun, the management present included president and chief financial officer Li Ronghui, independent director Li Puwei, financial controller Zeng Aihui, board secretary Hu Xuewen, and senior vice presidents Chen Changchun and Wang Nan. Xu Jiajun said at the briefing that, as the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, 2026 found the property industry, after a period of adjustment, at a critical stage of shifting from old to new growth drivers; with policies taking precise effect, market expectations were gradually stabilising, and the industry was accelerating the building of a new property development model suited to high-quality development.

In 2025, Gemdale recorded operating revenue of about 35.858 billion yuan, down 52.41% year on year; in terms of losses, net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent was -13.281 billion yuan, with the loss widening by 117.19% year on year, and net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent excluding non-recurring items was -12.307 billion yuan, with the loss widening by 180.53% year on year. The annual report attributed this to the following: sales had shrunk in recent years, so the area available for revenue recognition that year was smaller than the previous year and operating revenue fell as a result; the company made provisions for inventory write-downs and credit losses on a prudent basis; and the settled gross margin of the property business also fell by 6.18 percentage points to 7.93%. In the first quarter of 2026, the company’s revenue was 7.882 billion yuan, up 32.11% from the same period a year earlier; net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent was -680 million yuan, with the loss widening by 3.32% year on year; during the quarter it started construction on about 46,000 square metres and completed about 290,000 square metres, with contracted area of about 232,000 square metres and contracted sales of about 3.30 billion yuan.

Facing the decline in profits, Xu Jiajun set out four key points at the results briefing: first, adhering to an operating strategy centred on cash flow and holding the bottom line of financial security; second, focusing on the main business and seizing market opportunities by improving product quality, optimising new investment and revitalising existing assets; third, pursuing asset-light and asset-heavy businesses together, with coordinated development in project management (construction on behalf of others), operation of held properties and property services, to build a new model of sustainable development; and fourth, continuing to deepen management controls in pursuit of cost reduction and efficiency, seeking returns from lean management. He also explained that, as industry selling prices had generally fallen in recent years, the company had prudently made impairment provisions for inventory whose net realisable value had fallen below cost, reflected in the consolidated statements respectively as provisions for inventory write-downs and as credit impairment provisions on other receivables from joint ventures and associates. In 2025, the company’s gains from changes in fair value were -1.188 billion yuan (-813 million yuan in the previous year), credit impairment losses were -5.945 billion yuan (-2.376 billion yuan in the previous year), and asset impairment losses were -3.105 billion yuan (-3.899 billion yuan in the previous year); together these three items consumed 10.238 billion yuan of profit. Because cooperative development projects account for a high share of its business, the company’s other receivables far exceed its accounts receivable; at the end of the first quarter they were about 69.516 billion yuan, as much as 30.76% of total assets, consisting mainly of current-account funds advanced to joint ventures and associates for project development. Xu Jiajun said in this regard that the company would continue to monitor the impairment risk of such assets in accordance with accounting standards and would reflect changes in their value strictly in line with those standards.

Property development remained Gemdale’s main source of revenue, generating 23.89 billion yuan in 2025, about 66.6% of total revenue; contracted sales were 30.02 billion yuan, down 56.18% year on year. At the end of 2025, the company’s total land bank was about 24.72 million square metres, down from 29.16 million square metres in 2024; its attributable land bank was about 10.59 million square metres, compared with 12.45 million square metres in 2024; and the share located in first- and second-tier cities was about 79%, up from 77% in 2024. Xu Jiajun said that since 2025 the company had acquired high-quality residential land in cities including Hangzhou, Shanghai, Zhanjiang, Dalian and Qingdao through public tenders, auctions and listings, commercial-to-residential conversions and land swaps, and would continue to replenish its land bank prudently and opportunistically in light of market conditions and its overall cash flow, deepening its presence in key cities and seeking out areas and projects with a high margin of safety and strong growth potential. From January to May 2026, Gemdale added three projects, in Dalian, Qingdao and Xi’an, whereas it had added only two land parcels in the whole of 2025.

Xu Jiajun disclosed that the company regarded revitalising existing assets as its top priority for improving its asset structure and releasing cash flow, had set up a special working group to coordinate this, and had successfully completed the government buy-back of the Anqing City Starlight and Hangzhou Jiubao projects. After repaying two public bonds, “21 Gemdale 03” and “21 Gemdale 04”, Gemdale no longer had any outstanding public debt. At the end of the first quarter, the company’s non-current liabilities due within one year were about 34.082 billion yuan, while it held only 10.611 billion yuan in cash; president and chief financial officer Li Ronghui said that, for debt maturing in 2026, the company had drawn up a series of measures including accelerating sales, actively broadening financing channels and disposing of bulk assets. In 2024, at the peak of debt repayment, the company achieved a net operating cash inflow of 13.62 billion yuan, whereas in 2025 its net operating cash flow fell sharply to 16 million yuan, close to zero.