On November 14th, La Chapelle, known as the “Number One Women’s Wear in China,” bid farewell to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The former women’s wear giant, once dubbed as the “Chinese version of ZARA,” has officially delisted.
According to the announcement from La Chapelle, the listing status of the H shares of the company will be cancelled from 9 a.m. on November 14th, 2024. La Chapelle stated that the cancellation of the listing status of the H shares will not have a significant impact on the company’s daily operations and restructuring efforts.
Up to now, La Chapelle has reduced the number of its operating stores in mainland China to over a hundred, while its online stores like the Tmall flagship store continue to operate normally. According to La Chapelle’s official Weibo account, the brand’s current spokesperson is the well-known actress Gulnazar.
Established in 1998, La Chapelle was the first clothing company in China to be listed on both the A-share and H-share markets. At its peak, it had more than twenty brands and nearly ten thousand direct-operated stores, earning the title of the “Chinese version of ZARA” and being a nostalgic memory for many female millennials.
The company’s revenue exceeded 10 billion yuan in 2018, but it incurred losses that year. In 2019, the company’s revenue began to decline significantly, leading to a massive loss of 2.17 billion yuan. Subsequently, La Chapelle suffered large annual losses, amounting to over 6.6 billion yuan in five years. Due to declining revenue, performance losses, and other issues, La Chapelle was delisted from the A-shares in 2022.
In recent years, La Chapelle has faced waves of store closures and bankruptcy liquidation.
Statistics show that by the end of 2017, La Chapelle had a staggering 9,448 stores. At the end of 2018, the company had 9,269 directly operated counters, but by the end of 2021, it only had 300 stores. As of June 30th this year, the company operated only 155 stores in mainland China.
In addition, the “Shanghai Bankruptcy Court” WeChat public account issued a notice in June of last year stating that La Chapelle Apparel Co., Ltd. has officially entered bankruptcy liquidation.
In January of this year, the headquarters of La Chapelle in Shanghai was put up for auction. Despite a 30% discount, nearly ten thousand people showed interest, but no one ultimately purchased the land and equipment valued at 950 million yuan, resulting in no sale. As of October 31st, 2024, the company faced a total of eight legal disputes involving financial loan disputes, construction contract disputes, leading to one of its properties being sealed due to litigation.