Three Times A Year, Being Sold By International Giants, How Will Anta Fight Back?

A sudden short selling report is like the sword of Damour and Chris hanging on Anta's head.

In the morning of July 8th, the famous international short selling company muddy water company targeted the shoe king of Jinjiang, and released the short selling report of Anta sports on the official website.

Under heavy pressure, Anta sports announced the announcement this afternoon, and the company's stock was temporarily suspended at the HKEx. Before the suspension, Anta sports daily hk $51.25 per share, down 7.32% from the previous trading day.

"Anta sports secretly controlled its first class dealer to improve its profit margin". Muddy water company's short selling report is clear and the main points are: Anta sports secret controls 27 dealers, of which at least 25 are first-class dealers. Anta lied about being an independent third party, and its distributor became a "subsidiary".

As an internationally renowned short selling organization, muddy water has always been "extraordinary". Focus Media and Hui Shan dairy industry were once brutally attacked and finally ended up in the market.

As of press release, Anta sports official has not yet replied to this.

The best result is short selling three times.

This time, Anta, which is being watched by muddy water, is not small in itself. Judging from its performance, Anta sports also created the best results in history last year.

Anta sports, which landed in Hong Kong stock in 2007, has been in the capital market for 12 years.

E-commerce online reporters combed the Anta sports earnings in recent years, experienced 2012-2013 years of negative growth, since 2014, Anta sports has achieved sustained growth. In the past 2014-2017 years, the total turnover of Anta sports has been increasing steadily, from 8 billion 920 million in 2014 to 16 billion 690 million in 2017, basically keeping the annual growth rate of 22.5%.

In 2018, Anta sports ushered in a huge increase, operating income grew by 44.4% over the same period, reaching 24 billion 100 million yuan, compared with the domestic Lining and XTEP.

But a strong report card has not been approved by the capital market.

Since June 2018, Anta sports has been bombarded by three different short selling organizations.

In June 2018, GMT Research, a short selling organization, sold Anta sports, on the grounds that Anta's profit margin was "too high".

Anta sports immediately denied it, but the stock price has not suffered any obvious influence, but it has risen all the way.

The second attack took place in May 30th of this year. Another short selling agency, killer whale, questioned Anta sports's corporate governance and its FILA (FIE) brand income opaque at the investment forum. It is estimated that Anta sports share price will have a 34% decline, and short selling is recommended.

This news came out, diving in Anta sports intraday, once fell over 12%, the biggest decline since last October.

In fact, since the acquisition of Fiji in 2009, Anta sports has not disclosed the specific income and other data of Felix. It only disclosed that as of December 31, 2018, there were 1652 Anta stores in mainland China, Hongkong, China, Macao and Singapore.

Ding Shizhong, founder of Anta, has publicly disclosed that Fiat contributed more than 10 billion yuan in 2018, the biggest contribution to Anta's growth.

Anta sports predicts that the average growth rate of all brands will be 15%-20% by 2020, while the average growth rate of FILA, FILA KIDS and FILAFUSION is expected to exceed 30%.

The killer whale also grasped this point and believed that the income of Phil Lok in mainland China was not transparent.

On the eve of the opening day, Anta sports issued two announcements denying the false speculation, while disclosing the related party's subscription for new shares, which accounted for 0.59% of the total share capital.

The market responded positively to the counter attack, and its share price opened more than 1.8%. After that, it increased rapidly to nearly 6%, closing at 48 yuan / share, up 2.24%.

　　 Want to be the Anta of the world

"Do not be China's Nike, want to be the world's Anta", this is Anta founder Ding Shizhong set up flag.

In recent years, Anta has proved that it has been defined as the brand of the town youth, and is definitely "the bird of finch".

At present, Anta has 9 sports brands, 7 of which are overseas mergers and acquisitions. It can be said that Anta has been trying to turn itself into an international brand.

In January 8th this year, the Anti Monopoly Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce issued a case concerning Anta sports and Fangyuan capital's acquisition of amawin sports company. According to the requirements, the market share of the merger participants must be less than 15%. After the acquisition, the market share of Anta sports and amamin sports will reach 5-10%.

Such a high standard of mergers and acquisitions also allowed Anta sports to establish the dominance of "one brother" in the domestic sports circle.

Amamin, a sports brand born in Holland, has a high influence in the world. It has 13 private brands, such as Salomon, bird of origin, and Wilson. Among them, Salomon is famous for its production of skiing products, and is much favored by Olympic champions.

Statistics show that in the first quarter of 2018, amamfin sales reached 623 million 800 thousand euros, up 40.5% from the same period in 2017, and the EBIT profit was 40 million 400 thousand euros.

There is no doubt that the Anta group takes a fancy to the huge consumer group behind the AMF sports, as well as its position in the global professional sports field and the important assets in the company.

In order to acquire amamfin, Anta's total trade reached 37 billion 100 million yuan, which is so great that Anta's rising brand positioning and social status.

In fact, before that, Anta had already stepped up the pace of buying the world, started buying Fiat in 2009, bought Descent in Japan in 2016, and earned Kolon in South Korea in 2017 (Kolon).

This means that whether the young birds of the second line of youth or the three or four line youth wear Anta are actually from this company.

Sneakers are now "lame".

Today, Anta has surpassed Lining's market share by strength. According to the 2018 earnings report, Lining achieved 10 billion 500 million yuan in revenue and 24 billion 100 million times that of Anta.

However, the large volume of market does not mean that Anta must run fast.

In the earnings report, Anta sports's three major business revenue in 2018 was broken down. Footwear sales revenue was 8 billion 630 million yuan, an increase of 22.5% over the same period, 14 billion 710 million yuan in clothing revenue, an increase of 61.4%, and accessories sales of 759 million yuan, an increase of 44% over the same period last year.

Compared with the three, Anta sports, which is growing at a high speed, has seen a "limp" in footwear business.

Footwear revenue growth is not only far behind clothing, and even less than accessories, obviously dragged the whole group revenue growth of the hind legs. In 2018, footwear accounted for 35.8% of the group's total revenue, a sharp decline of nearly 7 percentage points over the same period.

Clothing has also become the most profitable part of Anta. In 2018, Anta's gross margin reached 52.6%. The gross profit margin of clothing business reached 55.3%, up 3.3 percentage points over the same period last year. As for footwear business, gross margin reached 49%, an increase of 2.3 percentage points over the same period last year.

You know, at the beginning, Anta sports made big progress step by step by relying on the production of sports shoes. More than 30 years ago, Ding Shizhong, who was only 17 years old, started his own business from scratch in Jinjiang, Fujian, and took 600 pairs of sneakers to Beijing to make a fortune. In 1991, Anta (Fujian) Shoes Co., Ltd. was established, and Anta brand came into being.

And this magical city of Jinjiang is also born with XTEP, 361 degrees, PEAK, del Hui, Hongxing Erke... .

But looking at the earnings of several other sports brand listed companies over the years, footwear revenue is still the biggest revenue, so Anta seems to be an alien.

After all, footwear is a well deserved boss in the field of sporting goods, but footwear is an important symbol of the strength of a sporting goods company.

Take Nike, the world's largest sporting goods company, as an example. From the product category, Nike's main products are footwear, clothing and equipment. Among them, the ratio of footwear to total revenue has been stable at 65% in recent four years, and clothing accounts for 30% of total revenue. Most of Nike's R & D and design power is devoted to sports shoes.

However, Anta really did a lot of work on the marketing of footwear products. Anta grabbed Tang Shen from Nike and Adidas, and the two sides finalized a big contract of 10 years and 80 million dollars.

In the earnings report, Anta's advertising and publicity spending increased by 1.5 percentage points in 2018 to 12.1%, while the R & D activity cost ratio in 2018 was 5.2%, down 0.5% compared with 5.7% in 2017.

No wonder muddy water mentioned in the short report that Anta has many admirable aspects in its operation and marketing.