(Yicai Global) Aug. 23 -- Share price of the 154-year-old China Quanjude Group has lost 67 percent of its value in over a decade of floating on the Shenzhen bourse as the Beijing-style roast duck restaurant operator struggles to transform toward the takeout era.

Quanjude's [SHE: 002186] stock rose 0.23 percent today to close at CNY13.07 (USD1.9), which is just 33 percent of its glory day of CNY39.28 on Jan. 4 in 2008. The Beijing-based firm's second-largest shareholder, American investment firm IDG Capital, has begun unloading its entire 5.87 percentstake in the restaurant chain, selling off 0.27 percent of outstanding shares in June and July, which explains some of the downward pressure.

Quanjude released depressing earning results on Aug. 20 that show a six-year slowdown in growth. The firm's net profit rose 1.29 percent to CNY777.9 million (USD113.3 million) for the first half of the year, which was a modest number in comparison to its golden years from 2007 to 2012, during which the firm doubled its revenue.

Quanjude has been criticized for high pricing and inconsistency in quality between different outlets. A whole roast duck costs about CNY250 (USD36), half of one is priced at CNY130, and other single dishes cost about CNY40 (USD6) to 60. This makes the restaurants primarily suitable for large banquets or tourists.

Quanjude has tried to morph to compete with the plethora of modern Chinese restaurants by starting a unit called Yage Technology in 2016 to offer delivery on Tencent Holding's social media platform WeChat and Baidu's Waimai, but the takeout arm was closed one year later after "falling short of management's expectations," and reporting a net loss worth CNY2.43 million for the first year.

Setbacks have not broken Quanjude's spirits. In March last year, Quanjude planned to acquire The Soup Kitchen, a casual Cantonese restaurant brand but the transaction was not completed due to a "complexity of the transaction and uncertainty of the advancement." Still, the firm's Chairman Xing Ying has said that the company has made many tentative moves and will not give up on this path.

Editor: Emmi Laine