Former Shanghai Women's Apparel Tycoon Pivots to Betting on Sichuan's New Energy

A well-established Shanghai-based fashion company once defined high-end women’s apparel aesthetics with the term “broadcast,” but is now fully shifting its focus to the lithium battery materials sector in Meishan, Sichuan.

On March 11, RiBo Fashion (603196.SH) officially completed a business registration change, with the company’s full name changing to “Shanghai Puyuan Chemical Materials Group Co., Ltd.,” and its stock abbreviation to “Puyuan Materials.”

This move marks its complete departure from the apparel main business and a full pivot toward new energy chemicals.

Driving this transformation is a key transaction completed by the end of 2025. The company acquired a 71% stake in Sichuan Indile Materials Technology Group for 1.42 billion yuan, approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission on December 31, 2025. Indile is not an ordinary chemical factory but a leading enterprise in the domestic PAA-type lithium battery binder field, with a market share of 49% in 2024, achieving domestic substitution of high-performance binders.

Against the backdrop of increasingly stringent safety and energy density requirements for power batteries, these “small but impactful” key auxiliary materials are becoming a new focus in the industry chain.

Indile’s main base is located in Pengshan Economic Development Zone, Meishan City, Sichuan Province. Here, a complete lithium battery material industry chain is being built, designated by the local government as a core area among the “Top 10 Lithium Battery Material Zones (Counties)” nationwide. According to the “Pengshan District 2025 Government Work Report,” Indile’s tax contributions exceeded 90 million yuan that year and was highlighted as a benchmark case for the completion and commissioning of nine projects, including its second phase.

On the day of the name change, Puyuan Materials also announced plans to expand its Sichuan layout: investing 311 million yuan to build the second phase of the Meishan Indile project, adding 140,000 tons/year of lithium battery binder capacity. This project will reuse the factory buildings and public facilities from the first phase, which entered trial production in March 2026, creating synergy. The total investment in the second phase will exceed 860 million yuan, and upon completion, the total capacity will reach 200,000 tons, further consolidating its dominance in China’s high-end binder market.

Behind this aggressive shift is the ongoing decline of its apparel main business. In 2024, RiBo Fashion’s revenue fell by 15.68% year-over-year, with a net loss of 159 million yuan, while Indile’s net profit reached 204 million yuan in the same period.

Between profit and loss, the answer is clear.

Today, this Shanghai-born fashion company has anchored its future in Sichuan’s lithium battery industry cluster.