Anta: This Year'S Total Water Consumption Increased By 20%-25%.

The industry's leading domestic sports brand Anta sports (02020-HK) announced its February 26th annual results in the afternoon of February 26th, and the index created the best Anta ever since the group was listed. In 2018, it also achieved double-digit growth in revenue and operating profit for fifth consecutive years.

The performance bulletin showed that Anta achieved 24 billion 100 million yuan (RMB, the same) last year, a year-on-year increase of 44.4%, gross profit of 12 billion 687 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 54%, operating profit of 5 billion 700 million yuan and 42.9% year-on-year growth, and shareholders should account for 4 billion 100 million yuan and an annual increase of 32.9%.

In the afternoon of 26, Anta held a 2018 annual performance conference in Hong Kong. The chairman and chief executive officer of the group, Ding Shizhong, President Zheng Jie, chief financial officer Lai Shixian and Wu Yonghua, the group president of sales, attended and answered questions.

Although the company's overall performance has gone up again, Anta's dividend payout rate fell last year.

The results showed that the final dividend of Anta was 28 Hong Kong cents per share, and the annual dividend yield (dividend to shareholders' profit ratio) was 44.9%, which was lower than that of Anta in previous years.

In response, Lai Shixian, chief financial officer of the group, explained at the performance meeting that it was due to the fact that the company was undertaking a major takeover (amamfin acquisition) and that the company needed some cash to make relevant preparations.

Will the dividend payout rate of Anta continue to be affected by the acquisition of amamin?

Ding Shizhong, chairman of the board of directors of Anta, responded that many investors thought that Anta could not send so many dividends before such a big acquisition. Nevertheless, Anta's dividend payout ratio reached 30% in the second half of 2018, which is not low in most of Hongkong's listed companies.

But he also pointed out that Anta had high expectations in the past because of its relatively high dividend payout ratio.

At the same time, Ding Shizhong also said that with the improvement of Anta's business, profit improvement and cash flow improvement in the future, it is believed that the dividend payout ratio of the group will exceed 30%. It is believed that with the improvement of cash flow in the future group, the dividend payout level will be higher and higher.

Speaking of widely concerned amamin purchase case, the outside world is naturally curious about the progress of the acquisition and Anta's expectation of the completion of the agenda.

Ding Shizhong also responded that Anta had just issued a notice the day before yesterday (February 25th), and that the acquisition project is indeed a very complex process, first of all through many countries' antitrust approval.

It is reported that until the day before Anta issued a notice, all countries in the global antitrust examination and approval have been approved, and the next step is to wait for approval by 90% of shareholders.

Ding Shizhong disclosed that the company hoped that the earliest date would be further progress on the 28 of this month. However, due to the late approval of the antitrust examination in Mexico, it was postponed until March 7th.

He said that there should be an argument in March 7th in the context of the overall normal situation, but in general, the acquisition has so far been smooth.

How much profit can Anta bring to Anta, which has attracted much attention and even lowered the bid level of the dividend payout level?

Ding Shizhong pointed out that in the short term, Mr al muffin should not make a big profit contribution to Anta, but it should still bring positive benefits.

According to the existing brand, Lai Shi Hsin said at the performance meeting that the management of the company was satisfied with Anta's performance last year, and that the group's revenue increased by 44.4%. The main reason was that Anta's main brand continued to maintain steady growth, and the FILA brand achieved rapid growth, while some new brands began to grow steadily.

At the end of 2018, there were 10057 main brands in Anta (including Anta children's independent stores) in China's total stores; FILA brands (including FILA KIDS and FILA FUSION independent stores) had 1652 stores in China, Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore; DESCENTE brands had 117 stores in China; 181 KOLON SPORT stores and 181 stores in China; Kingkow brands had 77 stores in China, Hong Kong, Macao and the United States; and SPRANDI brands had 104 stores in the country.

By the end of 2018, the number of Anta's brand stores reached 12188.

Group president Zheng Jie expressed the hope that the entity store of the group can truly become a platform for meeting the offline experience of consumers.

He also revealed that by the end of 2019, the group expected that the number of shops in Anta's main brand would reach about 11000; the FILA brand would return to about 1900 homes; the number of DESCENTE shops would reach 130-140; the Kingkow plan increased from 90-100 to 77 at the end of last year; SPRANDI could do 150 left and right; KOLON SPORT was about 180.

Zheng Jie also means that the group will continue to work hard to promote various businesses, especially the core brand growth in 2019. It is estimated that the growth of Anta's main brand will be maintained in double digits. The growth of FILA brand will exceed 30%; the overall growth of the group will be estimated at 20-25%.

More interviews are detailed below.

Q: in the field of basketball, the star effect is very obvious. The company has also signed some stars. Will there be any new stars signing up or will there be some potential players?

A: (Zheng Jie) basketball is the most important category of Anta brand. We can see the investment in basketball in recent years and the contribution of basketball stars to our basketball brand.

I believe we will continue to search for stars that match Anta brand, including stars who have achieved achievements and some new stars in the future.

This work has been ongoing. I hope our basketball category can become a real professional sports brand in the market under the current marketing way.

Q: what is the significance of sponsoring the Olympic Games and other top events in Anta's brand building?

A: (Zheng Jie) we have been working with the Chinese Olympic Committee since 2009, and it has been ten years now.

In the past ten years, the development of Anta has become a ten year partner in the platform of the Chinese Olympic Committee and the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee. I believe that the platform itself is also the highest platform in the Chinese sports industry. It also gives Anta a great boost. It will give a good support to how our own brand can become a representative of Chinese sports and become a representative of professional sports.

So what it means to us is that it fits perfectly with the positioning of our brand, and at the same time brings great impetus to the enhancement of our brand value.

Q: what other places do we need to match or improve in the process of cooperation with sports meet?

A: we have been working together for ten years in the sports teams. We are not a recruits. We should have an in-depth understanding of the whole professional sports teams of the country. They are also very satisfied with the cooperation.

Sports teams are also constantly upgrading, and new athletes are pouring more.

In fact, our important work now is the two Olympic Games in the future. One is the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the other is the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. Among the two Olympic Games, our sponsoring sports teams have great differences in their appeal for equipment, especially the functional appeal and the fashionable design of the equipment.

So for us, the opportunities and challenges come from how to enhance the product's functional R & D work. At the same time, we have an in-depth understanding of athletes' demands for equipment in the arena, giving them the best functional products and giving them the best design.

Because they are basically the 95 generation or the 00 millennial generation. They have high personalization needs for the products they use. For us, they also require the whole professional design team to have more innovative thinking to provide more high-quality, perfect and timely products to young athletes, so that they can perform better in the field.

Q: seeing that the speed of each brand in the shop has slowed down compared with the previous period, what is the consideration behind it?

A: (Ding Shizhong) we have seen more than 12000 stores in the entire Anta group. In the face of such big data, Anta has opened shop in the past few years, especially these mature brands. We have been particularly cautious.

We call "open a large store, open a good store", pursue the quality of the shop and pursue the upgrading of the shop.

For example, in the past three years, Anta's mother brand has kept about 7000 shops. In the past few years, the Anta children's base is not high yet more than 2000. Although the base is not high, there are many more in the industry, so we will keep the quality of this shop. In the future, especially in the next few years, we will still strictly control the quality of the shop.

FILA actually does not have many stores. We all know that many of our international brand friends, their shops are already nearly 10000, FILA brand is only 1600, our FILA brand will remain in the forefront of such a city.

Therefore, the number of shops is not our pursuit, quality is our pursuit.

As we all know, FILA is the fastest growing part of Anta. The 1600 stores contributed a lot to the group last year.

From this point of view, in the past, we were actually pursuing quality, not quantity. Looking at the number of friends of our domestic brands, the number of shops in fact is almost the same as that of Anta, but the benefit is less than half of Anta's. So what we are pursuing now is quality.

Q: has just mentioned the distribution of shops in 2019, and is it also mainly open in the first tier cities in 2019?

A: (Ding Shizhong) our different brands just opened a shop in the first tier cities, which is FILA. Anta is a multi brand "consumer full coverage" and "channel full coverage" company, because China's cities are divided into many levels, and different brands will develop in different cities.

Therefore, the situation will be positioned according to different situations.

Like FILA is the first tier second tier cities, Anta is dominated by second tier and three tier cities. Of course, our DESCENTE is dominated by super tier cities, so different brands will have different positioning.

Q: Anta has started the global layout through acquisitions. What is Anta's brand strategy in the next three years in the context of current internationalization?

A: (Ding Shizhong) Anta is a single focus multi brand strategy. In fact, Anta's strategy is very clear. Our vision is to become a world-class multi brand sporting goods management group.

At present, our main business is to focus on multi brand in the Chinese market. We call it "consumer full coverage", which is called "full coverage of channels".

Anta's brand internationalization is also advancing. In fact, we also hope that not only Anta can manage many brands around the world, but also bring Anta brand to the world, so this is our goal.

Thank you.

Q: in the context of the group's advocacy of internationalization, is the acquisition of AMF to bring the brand to China or to help Anta move towards the international market?

A: (Ding Shizhong) first of all, Anta's vision is to become a world-class multi brand sporting goods management group. We all know that after nearly ten years of practice, Anta has actually been able to manage a multi brand company.

FILA will not say, including we have just worked for two years. If you have a good understanding of the Chinese market, you can also see our ability to reshape some new brands in China.

Of course, like amamfin, a multi brand sporting goods group, and in all areas of professional understanding, you know, the value of these brands is actually very difficult to use money to measure, the brand of these companies is not a brand that can be built with money in the short term.

From the point of view of brand, brand is not shaped by money.

So it is very professional in various fields, and the sales of many brands of amamin in China are quite small, so we believe that we buy this company's important core strategy is also a space in the Chinese market. At the same time, many brands of this company also have enough influence in the whole world.

We believe that after the acquisition of Anta, the expansion of the company will change in the global development process.

Q: the total purchase amount of amamfin is relatively high, which will exceed the cash flow of Anta. Will it affect the turnover of capital?

Will it continue to look for such a target after the acquisition?

How to ensure the differentiated positioning among different brands and avoid internal friction?

A: (Ding Shizhong) first of all, in the process of multi brand operation, the difference of each brand is quite obvious.

In fact, our acquisition, Anta is also a relatively conservative company, we are not a very aggressive company.

Why do we look for the entire consortium this time? We also take into account our debt ratio in the process of acquisition and merger.

At present, the group's cash flow remains good in our acquisition of amamfin.

As for whether or not to look at such acquisition opportunities again, I think we will focus more on our existing businesses in the short term.