Yuyuan Bazaar

By the pond, multistory commercial buildings stretch beneath tiled roofs with upturned eaves. The bazaar took its name from neighboring Yu Garden, and began to grow from the market at the Shanghai City God Temple. Dozens of shops here stocked specialized goods: buttons, embroidery thread, canes, scissors, and toys. To shoppers, it all merged into one market, although the shops operated separately and belonged to different organizations.

In the spring of nineteen eighty-seven, Tang Renrong came to the Shanghai City God Temple again and again. He headed the market department of the recently restored Shanghai Branch of the Bank of Communications and was looking for its first major share offering. For nearly a year, his staff met every few days with the managers of the local shops, discussed issuing the securities, and persuaded them to entrust their sale specifically to their bank.

The neighboring Yu Garden gave the commercial quarter its name. The bazaar itself grew out of the market at the temple: by the nineteen eighties, dozens of specialized shops traded here. One sold buttons—about a thousand varieties; another stocked two hundred shades of embroidery thread; separate shops dealt in canes, handkerchiefs, braid, toys, and scissors. Shoppers saw a single market, but its shops belonged to different state and collective organizations, kept their own accounts, and could not pool money for expansion.

That was precisely why the city’s economic departments chose Yuyuan Bazaar for Shanghai trade’s first experiment with a joint-stock company. The shops brought in reliable revenue, and invested money could be returned directly to circulation in trade here. For the sellers, the experiment affected their income and savings: some of the shares were intended for employees, who would have to pay for them out of their own pockets.

Tang Renrong secured the agreement. In March nineteen eighty-eight, his department issued sixty-five thousand Yuyuan Bazaar shares with a face value of one hundred yuan each. A quarter of the capital remained with the state, the shops contributed more than half, and workers and other city residents bought another fifth. Huxinting and the Nine Zigzag Bridge were depicted on the crimson certificate, printed on banknote paper. The buyer received a stake in a commercial enterprise together with an image of old Shanghai.

After the issue, the shares were sold and resold through bank cash desks. When the Shanghai Stock Exchange opened in nineteen ninety, the company joined its first eight listings. By then, Tang’s market department had already been turned into the independent firm Haitong, and he became its first chief executive officer.

The next share issue paid for the transformation of the quarter itself. In nineteen ninety-two, the managers combined Yuyuan Bazaar with fifteen other enterprises and formed a single company capable of rebuilding the entire commercial district. Two years later, builders completed seven multistory commercial buildings with roofs and facades in the style of the Ming and Qing eras. The pavilion and zigzag bridge printed on the first share certificate remained nearby; the “historic” shops surrounding them had already risen with shareholders’ money.