2021-10-29Zhou Ershuang and Zhu Beibei of Soochow Securities Co., Ltd. conducted a study on Pilot Intelligence and released a research report "Three Quarterly Report Reviews: Performance in line with market expectations, continuing to benefit from the industry's high prosperity", this report gives a buy rating to Pilot Intelligence, and the current stock price is 81.24 yuan.
Pilot Intelligence(300450)
Event: The company released the third quarterly report, 2021Q1-Q3 achieved a total operating income of 5.948 billion yuan, +43% year-on-year; achieved a net profit attributable to the mother of 1.004 billion yuan, +57% year-on-year; and achieved a net profit of 975 million yuan, +61% year-on-year.
Investment essentials
The performance is in line with market expectations, and the whole line leader maintains high-quality profitability
In the first three quarters of 2021, the company achieved a total operating income of 5.948 billion yuan, +43% year-on-year; a net profit attributable to the mother of 1.004 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of +57%; and a net profit of 975 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of +61%. In a single quarter, the company achieved a total operating income of 2.68 billion yuan in 2021Q3, +17% year-on-year and +30% month-on-month; and a net profit attributable to the mother of 503 million yuan, +22% year-on-year and +68% month-on-month. Profit growth is faster than revenue growth, lithium battery equipment leader fully benefit from downstream expansion, to ensure high-quality profitability.
Profitability stabilized and recovered, and expense margins increased slightly during the period due to expense fronting
The company's consolidated gross profit margin for the first three quarters of 2021 was 37.5%, +1.1pct year-on-year, and net profit margin was 16.9%, +1.5pct year-on-year. The expense ratio for the first three quarters of 2021 was 19.9%, +2.3pct year-on-year. Among them, the sales expense ratio was 3.5%, +1.2pct year-on-year; the management expense ratio (including research and development) was 16.8%, +2.0pct year-on-year, mainly due to the company's active expansion of production, the number of employees increased significantly, but the equipment company's expense growth during the expansion period was earlier than the growth of total operating income (expense front), resulting in an increase in the management expense ratio; the financial expense ratio was -0.4%, year-on-year -0.9pct. In a single quarter, the company's gross profit margin in 2021Q3 was 36.7%, +3.4pct year-on-year, -0.25pct; net profit margin was 18.8%, +0.8pct year-on-year, +4.2pct, and the net profit margin rebounded significantly from the previous quarter.
There are sufficient orders in hand, fully benefiting from the expansion of downstream battery plants
As power battery factories enter the peak of expansion, the prosperity of the lithium battery equipment industry began to recover from 2020Q4 and entered the seller's market in 2021. Benefiting from the substantial expansion of downstream battery factories, the company has full orders in hand. As of the end of 2021Q3, the company's inventory was 7.3 billion yuan, +201% year-on-year; contract liabilities were 3.5 billion yuan, +135% year-on-year, both maintaining a high growth rate, and sufficient orders to ensure short-term performance growth. Q3 payment is good, the net operating cash flow in the single quarter of 2021Q3 is 588 million yuan, +410% year-on-year, mainly due to the large sales collection of Q3.
Restricted stock incentives bind core talents and demonstrate confidence in long-term development
On September 15, 2021, the Company issued a draft equity incentive, which intends to grant 2.58 million restricted shares to the incentive recipients, accounting for about 0.17% of the company's total share capital of 1.564 billion shares at the time of the announcement of the draft incentive plan. The incentive plan sets performance appraisal indicators at the company level, and the exercise condition is "or" condition. If the revenue and net interest margin targets are achieved at the same time, the net profit attributable to the parent company after excluding the impact of share payment expenses in 2021-2023 will be 14.1/23.2/3.16 billion yuan, respectively, +79%/65%/36% year-on-year.
Profit Forecast and Investment Rating: Benefiting from the high prosperity of the industry, the company signed a new single high growth, we maintain the company's net profit for 2021-2023 of 14.76/23.53/32.36, corresponding to the current stock price PE86/54/39 times, considering the company's solid leading position and performance flexibility, maintaining a "buy" rating.
Risk warning: The sales volume of new energy vehicles is lower than market expectations; the downstream investment expansion is lower than market expectations; and the profitability improvement is lower than market expectations.
A total of 31 institutions have given ratings in the last 90 days, with 24 buy ratings and 7 overweight ratings; the average target price of institutions in the past 90 days is 96.0; the Securities Star Valuation Analysis Tool shows that Pilot Intelligence (300450) good company rating is 4 stars, good price rating is 2 stars, and valuation comprehensive rating is 3 stars.