What Is The Way Of Transformation Of The First High-End Snack?

As the "wind vane" of the investment sector, Hillhouse capital, even if it only releases a survey information, can also cause the share prices of related companies to soar. On the other side of this "turning stone into gold" ability, we can imagine how much damage the target company will be caused by "reduction of holdings".

On March 1, on the first trading day after Hillard capital announced the reduction of its holdings, the "leading snack industry" fine product store suffered a sharp drop in its share price: on the same day, it touched the limit of decline, closing at 58.83 yuan / share, down 9.56%. Since then, the stock price of liangpinpu has been fluctuating. On March 4, the share price of liangpinpu fell by 4.12% to close at 56.55 yuan / share, which has fallen back to the price in March last year.

This is one of the few "tragic" moments since the launch of liangpin store.

Time goes back to a year ago. On February 24 of last year, liangpin shop successfully landed on a shares, with the opening price of 17.14 yuan / share, up 44.03%. In the 14 trading days since then, liangpinpu rose continuously to 65.09 yuan / share, more than four times higher than the issue price of 11.9 yuan / share. In the following year, liangpin shop once reached 87.24 yuan / share, which was a well deserved leader in the A-share snack industry.

Looking back, it is difficult to say that liangpin shop was sought after in the capital market in the early stage, which has nothing to do with the influence of shareholders' high capital and endorsement. Hillhouse capital has taken the good product shop as a typical case of enabling invested enterprises in many public occasions.

At the time when the one-year lock-in period was just lifted, at the risk of being ridiculed by the group as "long-term doctrine", the company immediately launched a plan to reduce its holdings, which inevitably made the market have doubts: is the quality shop no longer worth investing? Or growth cracks?

It may be too early to draw conclusions. However, this wave of reducing holdings may become an incision to observe the strategic investment logic and the changing situation of the snack industry.

Hold down shock wave

The cooperation between the two sides began in 2017. As early as in the primary market, Hillard capital has made layout of good quality stores.

In September of that year, Zhuhai Hillard transferred 3.16% of the equity held by Ningbo Junlong for 189 million yuan, and Hong Kong highland transferred 5.26% equity held by Dayong Co., Ltd. with RMB 316 million yuan; in December of the same year, Ningbo Hillhead and Zhuhai Hillhouse subscribed for the new share capital with RMB 180 million yuan and Zhuhai Hillard with RMB 136 million yuan, thus Hillard capital invested 821 million yuan from the primary market. Until the listing of liangpinpu, hillhorig has accounted for 13% of the shares, becoming the third largest shareholder of liangpinpu.

After several rounds of operation in the capital market, the successful listing of liangpin store also made Hillhead a lot of money.

As of February 24, 2021, the stock price of liangpinpu reached 64.95 yuan / share, with a total market value of 26.045 billion yuan. According to the 46800271 shares held by Hillhouse capital, the corresponding market value reaches 3.04 billion yuan. Excluding the investment in the primary market, the floating profit of Hillard capital is as high as 2.219 billion yuan, which is 2.7 times of the investment cost.

It seems to be time for a good harvest.

On the evening of February 26, liangpin shop announced that it had received the share reduction plans of Zhuhai Hillhead Tianda equity investment management center (limited partnership), Hh lppz (HK) Holdings Limited and Ningbo Hillhouse Zhiyuan investment partnership (limited partnership). It is understood that the three companies mentioned above are subsidiaries of capital organization Hillhead, and they are all persons acting in concert, accounting for 11.67% of the total share capital of liangpinpu, all of which were held before IPO.

From the perspective of the reduction plan, the total number of shares held by the persons acting in concert will not exceed 24.06 million shares, or 6% of the total share capital of the company.

Although liangpin shop recently exclusively replied to the 21st century economic report, the proposed shareholders decided on the reduction plan according to their own capital needs. If the reduction plan is completed, it will still hold 5.67% of the shares of the listed company and remain the major shareholder of the company. "This reduction plan will not affect the corporate governance structure and sustainable operation. The company will continue to focus on "high-end snacks" strategy. "

But the reduction has always been the "touchstone" of the stock price, let alone the "weathervane" of investment. The lethality of the plan can be seen.

On March 1, the first trading day after the release of the plan, liangpin shop closed at 58.83 yuan / share, down 9.56%. From the perspective of capital trends, the stock's fleeing capital is mainly Zhongdan, with a capital of 14.38 million yuan. According to the dragon and tiger list data, the top five sellers were Shanghai Stock connect seats, which sold 17.7972 million yuan. The other two institutions sold 10.6531 million yuan and 4.1804 million yuan respectively.

From the point of view of the reduction time point, Hillhouse has just lifted the ban on the one-year term share sale, and at this time, it has only been more than three years since it entered the liangpin store. Market query follows: say good long-term doctrine, value investment, say good company grow together?

"The reduction of Hillhouse capital's holding of high-quality shops has a great impact on the latter's capital market. Hillhouse capital adheres to the long-term value investment concept, while Hillhouse's investment in liangpinpu is not too long. Compared with other investment projects of Hillhouse, the investment cycle of liangpinpu is actually very short. " Hejun consulting partner humanity Zhihong, who has long been concerned about the retail industry, told the 21st century economic reporter.

However, from a high point of view, as a private equity institution, in addition to long-term doctrine, there is also a need for financial withdrawal. "Entering the primary market and reducing or withdrawing from the secondary market after the listing of an enterprise is a normal market operation of an investment institution, which is a reasonable phenomenon." "And after the reduction of major shareholders, liangpin store will release a certain amount of liquidity, which will help to introduce institutional investors who are optimistic about the company's future," said an industry person close to Hillhouse capital

However, some investors believe that this may mean a shift in investment from Hillhead. "From the perspective of the layout in 2021, more funds from Hillhead have been distributed to the pharmaceutical sector, new energy and intelligent manufacturing fields."

Regardless of the original intention and influence geometry of the reduction, there is a deeper question hidden behind this action: is the growth of quality shops over?

"We can't think that the reduction of Hillhouse capital means the market value of an enterprise or its development reaches its peak, and we can't think that there is no room for development. For an investment institution, how to allocate assets is definitely the biggest return considering the long-term value. In other words, from a high perspective, we may see investment targets with better growth, so reducing the holding of good quality shops does not mean that there is no room for growth. " Wen Zhihong told reporters.

The operation of "high throwing" has happened in the A-share market in the past. For example, in the second quarter of last year, Hillard built a warehouse with UBS AG, the leader of hemoperfusion device, and swept about 13.22 million shares. Based on the 48.92 yuan / share of Jianfan biology on April 1, the warehouse building cost was about 647 million yuan. After that, the stock price of Jianfan biology gradually rose. In the third quarter, UBS AG sold 23800 shares in Jianfan biology. If the closing price on September 30 was 71.05 yuan / share, Hillhead would cash in about 1.69 million yuan.

However, it is worth noting that after selling a small number of shares in the third quarter, Jianfan biological's share price continued to rise, and reached a new high of 95.18 yuan / share on February 18 this year. According to the calculation that UBS AG still holds 13.2 million shares of Jianfan biology, the market value of the shares held by Hillard reached 1.256 billion yuan.

High altitude mark

The main reason why the market has great doubts about Hillhouse's exit lies in its deep involvement in the invested enterprises. After leaving the field, can the good shops, which have been marked with "high-altitude marks", continue the previous development path?

"As we all know, the investment of Hillhouse capital is not pure capital investment, but also supports and empowers enterprises in terms of strategy, business model, operation and management. Moreover, Hillhouse itself has a lot of research on retail industry." Wen Zhihong told the 21st century economic reporter.

The above statement has been confirmed by good shop. The company replied to the reporter's interview in the 21st century economic report that after the introduction of Hillhouse capital, the company established a set of store location system with the help of Hillhouse capital's technology enabling real economy advantages, which can not only realize intelligent location, but also reduce the energy consumption of supply chain logistics and reduce the environmental impact. At the same time, according to the layout of consumer life path, it has created multi-functional stores and built a brand-new scene of interaction with consumers.

At a private equity industry summit in 2019, Cao Wei, partner of Hillhouse capital, once talked about how to use technology to locate stores for liangpin stores.

"In the past, retail chain enterprises used to evaluate whether a store should be opened or not and whether there are enough consumers. More often, they used offline survey data such as on-the-spot inspection, statistics of flow of people, door-to-door visits, competitive pair analysis and other offline survey data to judge the rationality of a store. But now, we can rely more on the brand's own online e-commerce data, combined with the third-party data such as Volkswagen review and Gaode map, more in-depth and accurate positioning of customers with strong product consumption ability, quickly judge whether there are enough consumers in this area and the saturation of similar businesses and stores. We can even preliminarily predict the flow of stores and greatly improve the stores Expansion efficiency and store opening accuracy. "

In addition to enabling science and technology, more importantly, many major strategic changes of liangpin store in the past three years are inseparable from the strategic promotion.

In 2017, the good quality shop, which had been in rapid expansion before, suddenly proposed to slow down.

"From 2017 to 2019, we have started a three-year period of system adjustment. Instead of pursuing the rapid growth in the past decade, we have relatively slowed down and shifted from factor management to system operation, preparing for the second take-off." Liang pin shop Chairman Yang Hongchun said.

From the financial report, from 2017 to 2019, the revenue growth of liangpin store slowed down compared with the 36.2% growth rate in 2016, but still maintained a double-digit growth of 15% - 25%.

In 2019, with the increasingly fierce competition in the industry, liangpin stores put forward the strategy of "high-end snacks", attracting many market attention. Yang Hongchun stressed that "the corporate positioning of high-end snacks is not the transformation in the development stage of liangpin shops, but the strategic focus."

Liangpin shop insiders told reporters, "Hillhouse has introduced lean management team for the company, and has built a lot of platforms. It must have participated in the strategy formulation."

For example, in order to promote the upgrading of the whole supply chain system of liangpin store, there are many high-level layouts in the consumption field. It has established a communication platform with other invested enterprises, such as child king, mingchuangyoupin, Baili, etc., to share the experience of the whole process management of product procurement, warehousing, logistics and delivery.

In February 2020, liangpin shop, which is called "the first share of high-end snacks", successfully landed in a share market, and the company of liangpin store for more than two years also ushered in the harvest period. However, now that Hillhouse has made its way back and gradually gets rid of the high-quality brand shop, is the road of transformation still smooth?

The difficulty of breaking through the encirclement

In the view of some market participants, this reduction of hillhood Holdings has at least punctured some bubbles in the snack industry.

In the past five years, the snack industry has entered a period of rapid development. An obvious manifestation is the accelerated securitization of several snack brands. In 2016, laiyifen was listed on the main board and became the "first share of snacks". In the same year, baicaowei was acquired by Haoxiang and landed on A-share; in 2017, yanjinpuzi was listed; in 2019, three squirrels were listed; in 2020, liangpin shop was listed in the capital market. At this point, the snack industry several giants in the A-share together.

Not only liangpin shop, but also three squirrels gained capital support in the early stage of listing: the opening price of 14.68 yuan / share reached 81.25 yuan / share in just two months; in May 2020, it hit the highest price of 91.31 yuan / share. But since then, the stock prices of the three squirrels have been falling, hovering around 40 yuan / share.

But it is also in these five years of the giant melee, the profitability of various degrees of decline. In 2017 and 2018, the net profit of laiyifen increased negatively for two consecutive years. Although it turned positive in 2019, it only achieved a growth of 2.59%. In 2019, for the first time, the growth rate of net profit of the three squirrels showed negative growth, falling from 0.61% of the previous year to - 21.43%. In 2017, after liangpin store proposed "slowing down", the net profit of that year fell by 60%. In 2018 and 2019, the growth rate of net profit rose to 520.65% and 42.68%.

It is worth noting that 2019 is also a year when the "Internet dividend recession" is widely mentioned. Among them, the proportion of online sales of three squirrels is higher, reaching about 98% (down to 85% in the first half of 2020). 58% (up to 52.45% in the first half of 2020), which is more balanced online and offline. The performance of the two companies in 2019 has declined or slowed down compared with the previous year.

In 2020, under the influence of the epidemic situation, the performance of several snack giants will decline again. Take laiyifen, which focuses on offline channels, as an example, it is estimated that the net profit loss of last year may reach 80 million yuan; the net profit of three squirrels in heavy online channel will drop by 10.6% in the first three quarters of last year; the net profit of liangpin shop will drop by 16.1% in the first three quarters of last year. Only yanjinpu, which is dominated by commercial and supermarket channels, is growing against the trend, and its net profit is expected to grow by more than 80% last year.

"In the past, the leisure food industry was very fragmented and extremely nonstandard, and there was basically no brand. Liangpin shop, three squirrels and baicaowei have developed rapidly by means of branding, standardization, chain operation and networking. This is a development dividend, but now the dividend is almost gone. Brands, chains and stores have basically come out, and they have entered into homogeneous competition. " "More importantly, it is not easy to build a moat for the leisure food retail industry, and the snack giants mentioned above do not have strong moats and competition barriers fundamentally," Wen said In his opinion, these two points are the reasons for the reduction of Hillhouse capital.

For good shops, the three-year system adjustment period has passed, and now it is more urgent to solve how to highlight the advantages in the homogeneous competition.

"High end strategy" is regarded as the main starting point of differentiated competition by good shops. Yang Hongchun once told reporters, "liangpin store will take high-end snacks as the enterprise development strategy and brand management strategy in the next 10 years."

Up to now, this strategy has been implemented for two years. Liangpin shop evaluated its practical value to reporters in this way: "the company has promoted the implementation of high-end strategy in product upgrading, focusing on market segmentation and supply chain management upgrading, and has achieved positive results."

But judging from the current data, it will take time to really open the gap.

"The most important thing for the future development of quality shops is how to strengthen their own competitive barriers. This process may be quite long and needs to be explored constantly. The direction of the company's high-end line is still relatively optimistic, including the attempt in many subdivision areas has also achieved some success. But none of this is enough to build a stronger moat. " Wen Zhihong said.

Zhu danpeng, an analyst of China's food industry, also agrees with the high-end strategy of liangpin store, "but it needs time in the process of operation."

A relatively certain conclusion is that there is still room for the future development of leisure retail food industry, but it is more difficult than in the past. The long-term perspective, which has always been a long-term one, has stepped out of business and turned to investment fields with more room for growth.

?