The real estate industry is cooling down, and the building materials circle that relies on construction to make a living is having a hard time.
Especially in the waterproofing track, the era of making money by lying down has long been gone. The market has been severely involuted and the increments are getting smaller and smaller. If old waterproofing companies want to develop steadily, they must find another way out.
Recently, Keshun Co., Ltd., the leader in the domestic waterproofing industry, has made a blockbuster operation.
According to information from Tianyancha, Keshun acquired 70% of the equity of Dalian Paint Co., Ltd. and subscribed 15.61 million yuan to control this old paint company.
This is also the first time Keshun has officially entered the coatings track through capital mergers and acquisitions after years of scattered testing, marking the company’s accelerated transformation from a single waterproof material supplier to a comprehensive coating building materials service provider.
As the second leading company in the industry, Keshun’s development pace has long been deeply tied to the real estate industry.
In the past two years, the real estate industry has experienced a downturn. Demand for new homes has shrunk, customer payments have slowed down, and the risk of bad debts has increased. This has directly led to the sluggish growth of the main waterproofing business, and the company’s operations have been under obvious pressure.
The 2025 financial report data clearly reflects the industry’s plight. The company achieved operating income of 6.044 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 11.49%.
Among them, waterproof material revenue was 4.66 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.78%; waterproof engineering revenue was 1.084 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 10.68%.
Faced with the current situation where the ceiling of the waterproofing industry is gradually emerging and the stock game is intensifying, Keshun knows that it is difficult to develop stably in the long term by sticking to its main business, and strategic transformation is imperative.
It does not stick to the traditional real estate waterproofing track. Instead, it actively reduces high-risk, long-term real estate orders and vigorously develops home improvement retail, infrastructure, overseas markets and emerging businesses.
The company successfully ushered in a performance recovery in 2026.
A series of adjustments have achieved remarkable results. In the first quarter of 2026, the company’s revenue and net profit have steadily rebounded, and profitability resilience has continued to be released.
However, the overall growth space of the waterproof industry is limited, and it is difficult to reproduce past dividends.
In contrast, the coatings track has outstanding advantages, especially industrial anti-corrosion and special protective coatings, which are less affected by the real estate cycle, have stable market demand, and the overall gross profit margin is much higher than the traditional waterproofing business.
Laying out the coatings track has become a key choice for Keshun to optimize its revenue structure, disperse cyclical risks, and create a second growth curve.
The acquisition of Dalian Paint is not a temporary decision, but an important implementation link of Keshun’s diversification strategy in the past two years.
Today, Keshun has been breaking away from the label of a “pure waterproofing company”. Through multi-track layout, it continues to reduce its dependence on the real estate industry and build a stable operating system.
On the production capacity and market side, Keshun no longer sticks to the domestic real estate market.
The overseas production base in Malaysia and the joint venture in Macau are operating stably and have upgraded from exporting products overseas to localized services. Overseas business has become an important growth highlight.
At the same time, the country is improving its production capacity layout in the southwest and northwest, and is deeply exploring stable markets such as municipal infrastructure and urban renewal; the company is vigorously developing home improvement retail channels, and its nationwide distribution outlets continue to expand, focusing on the blue ocean market for existing house renovations, effectively hedging the downward pressure on new home project orders.
The industrial layout is even more blossoming.
Keshun has entered the field of new materials for seismic reduction and isolation through the acquisition of Fengze shares, and is deeply involved in rail transit and municipal infrastructure. It relies on its professional investment platform to incubate high-quality new material projects and enrich the industrial landscape.
At the same time, strategic shareholding of local state-owned assets has been introduced to deeply bind local construction resources and open up channels for government-enterprise cooperation.
This cross-border coating is a core step for Keshun to complete the entire building materials category chain and improve the coating material system.
In fact, Keshun’s vision for the coatings industry is not a whim, but a long-term plan that lasts for several years.
As early as 2018, Keshun initially tested the field of industrial coatings, established a professional technical team, and established relevant new material entities.
However, due to problems such as lack of industry experience and low channel adaptability, the first attempt failed to be implemented on a large scale, but it accumulated valuable industry experience and technical knowledge for subsequent layout.
In the years since then, Keshun has continued to delve into coating technology research and development and production capacity construction.
In 2026, the coatings business will see a breakthrough. The company has built a new intelligent new material industrial park, planned multiple water-based coatings and industrial anti-corrosion coatings production lines, built two major coating production bases in the north and south, completed the production capacity and technical system construction of the coatings business, and laid a solid foundation for marketization.
The Dalian Paint acquired this time is a high-quality target that is highly consistent with Keshun’s strategy.
The company owns the classic “Seagull” paint brand and has been engaged in special coatings for ships, motorcycles, and heavy industries for many years. It holds a number of industry authoritative qualifications and high-quality industrial customers, and has deep accumulation in the field of high-end industrial coatings.
Through this merger and acquisition, Keshun does not need to break through technical and qualification barriers from scratch, but can quickly enter the high value-added industrial coatings track, forming a dual-line pattern of architectural coatings and special coatings.
Relying on mature engineering and home improvement channels, Keshun can realize combined sales of waterproofing and coating products, complete the efficient reuse of customer and channel resources, and significantly improve operational efficiency.
At present, the real estate dividend in the building materials industry has completely faded, and the development model of a single main industry is outdated.
Keshun’s cross-border coatings are a cyclical breakthrough that follows the trend.
Although after crossing the border, it will face considerable challenges in technology integration, brand synergy, and market competition, it is undeniable that this move has opened up a new growth ceiling for Keshun, and also allowed the industry to see new possibilities for traditional building materials companies to cross the cycle.
