Trendy jewelry maker CHJ joins Hong Kong IPO ‘gold rush’

The company is challenging Laopu Gold for investor dollars among a new generation of value-added jewelry designers

Key Takeaways:

• CHJ is hoping to match Laopu Gold’s stunning investor popularity with its planned Hong Kong IPO
• The company is betting that its trendy jewelry will attract both traditional consumers and the new “China chic” fashionista buyers in its home market and Southeast Asia

By Edith Terry

If Laopu Gold (6181.HK) is the “Hermés of Chinese gold jewelers,” then Shenzhen-listed Guangdong CHJ Industry Co. Ltd. (002345.SZ) is positioning itself more as a gold jewelry version of Walmart.

Now, CHJ’s wider-angle strategy of making trendy products for mid-market consumers is being put to the test as it gears up for a Hong Kong IPO. The company is part of a growing group of firms listed on China’s domestic A-share markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen now seeking second listings in Hong Kong to tap overseas investors, often seeking money to fund global expansions.

Its preliminary IPO application filed last week reveals that CHJ plans to use some of the funds from the new listing for 20 overseas stores, to be managed from an international headquarters in Hong Kong, as well as for three new domestic flagship stores and a new production base.

That could make it a rival for investor dollars with the equally popular Laopu, known as one of China’s “three golden flowers,” along with Labubu maker Pop Mart (9992.HK) and trendy bubble tea seller Mixue (2097.HK), for their recent outsize stock market performance. But CHJ could find the going tough due to its wider product range and slower growth.

Its overseas push echoes that of Laopu, which opened two stores in Hong Kong last year, and added a third one there this year, along with a store in Singapore, complementing its first offshore store in Macao opened in 2021. Laopu’s Hong Kong and Macao revenue has grown rapidly since then, reaching 855 million yuan ($120 million) last year. CHJ’s overseas revenue is much smaller due to its more recent move overseas, which includes new stores opened in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok last year, and two stores in Cambodia. 

CHJ’s Shenzhen-listed shares have done quite well lately, more than tripling over the last 52 weeks to give the company a frothy price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 45. That still pales compared to a sixfold increase in Laopu’s stock over the last year, though even after such gains Laopu’s P/E is still lower than CHJ’s at 36.

CHJ’s broad-spectrum product range is split between fashion-oriented K-gold jewelry, and classic gold jewelry that is often purchased mostly as an investment product for the value of the gold it contains. While the former products tend to carry much higher margins and are thus more profitable, margins for the latter are much lower.

But the market for classic gold in China is the larger of the two categories, reflecting the traditional preference for buying jewelry as an investment. According to CHJ’s prospectus, China’s classic gold jewelry market was worth 524.2 billion yuan in 2024, more than twice the size of the gold fashion jewelry market that was worth 203.8 billion yuan. While CHJ was ranked only ninth overall in China’s broader jewelry market, in was the leader for gold fashion jewelry with 1.4% of the market.

Compared to Laopu, whose revenue rose 251% year-on-year to 12.4 billion yuan in the first six months of 2025, while its net profit nearly quadrupled to 2.27 billion yuan, CHJ’s financials look far less spectacular.

Slower revenue growth

CHJ’s revenue increased by 10.6% year-on-year to 6.5 billion yuan in 2024, reflecting expansion of its extensive franchising network that accounts for the bulk of its stores. The growth rate picked up to 19.6% in the first six months of 2025 to 4 billion yuan.

In the first half of this year, the company got 48.6% of its revenue was from fashion jewelry, while 44.6% came from classic gold jewelry, and 3% came from its Fion handbag division. Its profit fell 42% last year to 194 million yuan, but returned to growth in the first half of 2025, rising 45% year-on-year to 331.52 million yuan during the period.

Both Laopu and CHJ are deeply exposed to the guochao or “China chic” trend in gold jewelry, which has only become popular in recent years among a younger generation that sees such jewelry as more a fashion statement than pure investment. The major difference between the two is that Laopu positions its “heritage” jewelry as premium products sold for high prices. By comparison, CHJ does a little bit of everything, including both classic gold jewelry for the investment market, as well as trendier products like bracelets and phone pendants based on Japanese and Chinese-themed designs.

With gold prices fast approaching a record $4,000 an ounce, and up more than 40% over the last 52 weeks, both companies have a unique advantage over peers that simply sell gold jewelry as an investment.

When gold prices are rising fast, Chinese consumers tend to cut back their purchases, partly due to the high prices and also uncertainty. Traditional players like Chow Tai Fook (1929.HK) and Chow Sang Sang (0116.HK), known for selling investment jewelry, have both seen steep declines in their revenue and profits over the past year as a result of that tendency. That contrasts sharply with the increases recorded by Laopu and CHJ.

CHJ was established in the city of Shantou in South China’s Guangdong province in 1996, and is known as the “King of K-gold” due to its longstanding focus on design and use of gold alloys, measured by karats. It was the first Asian jewelry brand to showcase its products at Baselworld, the world’s premier jewelry fair in 2006, and has since established both a design laboratory at the prestigious Tsinghua University and a jewelry museum.

In 2019, it debuted a gold filigree collection that it describes as a product linked to techniques popular in the Ming dynasty. And it broke new ground with more contemporary Asian themes when it licensed the Japanese animé character Doraemon in 2010.

Like Laopu, CHJ mostly sells its products the traditional way through brick-and-mortar stores. Its sprawling retail network of 1,542 shops dwarfs Laopu’s 36 stores in Greater China, including Hong Kong and Macao. Unlike Laopu, 1,337 of CHJ’s stores are franchises, generating 54.6% of the company’s sales in the first six months, versus 27.3% of sales for its self-operated stores. Most of the remainder, 12.2% of sales, came from online channels.

For CHJ, growth may depend on how well its less exclusive, Walmart-style approach succeeds in Southeast Asia, where tastes in gold jewelry are like China’s and where consumers also buy gold jewelry as investments and inflation hedges. In a media interview last June, CHJ said it would focus on Southeast Asia for the next two years, citing intense competition at home.

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