On April 16, the Listing Committee of the ChiNext Board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange released the results of the 23rd review in 2021, and three companies, including Beijing ZeroPoint Data Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zero Points"), successfully passed the meeting. As a company under the "entrepreneurial mentor" Yuan Yue, the capital market of Zero Point Has attracted the attention of investors.
Zero Point's main business is to provide data analysis and decision support services for customers in the public affairs and business fields, that is, to provide data research or statistical reports for government agencies or enterprise customers.
Compared with the popularity of zero points, in fact, the controller Yuan Yue can be described as a storm in the entrepreneurial circle, and is known as the "father of youth entrepreneurship" by the industry.
According to public information, Yuan Yue has attended the forum as a lecturer and event host for many years, and his research and writings focus on brand management, systematic marketing system, leadership shaping and crisis management. In addition to social activities, Yuan Yue is also rich in the business field, with titles such as chairman of the leading zero point research consulting group, founder of pegasus brigade of entrepreneurial management service organization and vice president of the China Market Research Association, as well as the dean of the business school of the new Shanghai Commercial University, the doctor of sociology of Peking University, the MPA of Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, and the visiting professor of Tsinghua University.
How is the company incubated by "net red" professor Yuan Yue?
<h4>On the eve of the meeting, there was an urgent demining</h4>
The listing process of zero points is more tortuous. In February 2017, the company was listed on the New Third Board, and the listing was terminated in December 2018. In October 2019, Zero Points immediately launched the listing process on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. In April 2020, ZeroPoints once again diverted to the GEM.
Some industry insiders pointed out that data research companies are generally considered to lack the attributes of science and technology, and the number of zero points planning for listing on the science and technology innovation board is not excluded because the science and technology innovation board has just been established in 2019, and the company's management believes that it can enjoy the "first dividend".
(Figure: Zero point has a number of reporting period results)
From the perspective of financial data, in the reporting period from 2018 to 2020, the revenue of Zero Point Count was 349 million yuan, 381 million yuan and 378 million yuan, and the net profit was 35.7614 million yuan, 40.5398 million yuan and 51.3606 million yuan, respectively. Yuan Yue directly and indirectly controls a total of 81.43% of the company's equity and has an absolute controlling interest.
In terms of performance, zero points are in line with the initial listing conditions of the Gem "the net profit in the last two years is positive, and the cumulative net profit is not less than 50 million yuan". However, an investigation by economic reporters in the 21st century found that zero points are difficult to get rid of the suspicion of whitewashing performance.
According to the data, the number of contracts signed in 2018 was 1269, while the number of contracts that achieved operating income in that year was 1320, and the number of contracts that realized revenue was greater than the number of contracts signed. The company put some of the contracts signed in previous years in the 2018 reporting period for acceptance and confirmation.
In 2018, zero points signed and contributed only 966 contracts in that year, contributing 227 million yuan in revenue, compared with the company's annual revenue of 349 million yuan in 2018. The contract revenue signed and completed in 2018 accounted for only 64.94% of the company's revenue for that year, and 40% of the revenue was confirmed by the extension of the contract from 2014 to 2017, with a cumulative amount of up to 122 million yuan.
In the prospectus, Zero Point Only disclosed that the contract revenue composition in 2018 was the cumulative data of the contract revenue for the previous five years, and whether the same situation existed in 2019 and 2020 was not disclosed by the company.
In addition to the dispute over financial data, Yuan Yue also carried out emergency mine clearance on the eve of listing.
According to Yuan Yue's concept of "whether there is a fish, first cast a net", the available industrial and commercial information shows that Yuan Yue has served in nearly 60 companies and is the actual controller of more than 110 companies.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter's investigation found that most of the companies that Yuan Yue worked for or controlled were equity investment, market information surveys, media marketing, enterprise consultants, etc., most of which were small and micro enterprises, and nearly half of them had a registered capital of less than 1 million yuan.
Yuan Yue is the founder of pegasus venture capital management service company that has invested in hundreds of companies. During the reporting period, there were a total of 299 enterprises invested by Pegasus Enterprise Services and Pegasus Investment, of which 45 directly or indirectly controlled enterprises, 18 enterprises nominated directors of Pegasus Enterprise Services and Pegasus Investment, and 236 other enterprises.
(Pictured: Risks around Yuan Yue)
There are many investment enterprises, and it is inevitable to step on the thunder.
The prospectus revealed that Pegasus invested in and nominated directors of the company's car energy loan during the reporting period. As a P2P platform, Cheneng Loan was punished criminally in accordance with the law for the crime of illegally absorbing deposits from the public, and there are still more than 60 million yuan in arrears that have not been paid off. Before the explosion, Yuan Yue also allowed Cheneng Loan to use his portrait for marketing and publicity activities, and repeatedly publicized his platform.
Therefore, before Zero Points submitted the prospectus, Yuan Yue urgently transferred his 5% equity interest in Pegasus Enterprise Services to Yang Zhenyu and no longer served as an executive director of the company. At present, Yuan Yue still holds 35% of the voting rights of Pegasus Enterprise Services, and whether he will be responsible for the illegal fund-raising case of Cheneng Loan has no clear answer from the public prosecutor's law system. The industry said that its emergency transfer of shares may be suspected of circumventing regulatory review on the eve of the IPO.
Not only that, as of June 2020, Yuan Yue has transferred and cancelled a large number of affiliated companies, of which a total of 26 of the foreign investment enterprises held by Pegasus Enterprise Services and Pegasus Investment have been transferred and 47 enterprises have been cancelled.
This move has attracted the attention of regulators, and the issue of the intensive cancellation of affiliated companies by zero points has been asked, asking for clarification of whether the affiliated companies have violated the rules during the renewal period, whether the equity transfer and cancellation procedures are legal, etc., but in the prospectus, the zero points have avoided talking about whether there are violations and violations during the existence period.
<h4>Pull the ministry to do the big banner? </h4>
This time, Zero Point Count plans to sprint to the Gem Board, planning to raise 298 million yuan to invest in three projects: "Zero Point Has Several Cloud Assessment", "Knowledge Wisdom Spectrum" and "Number Of Decision Making Cloud Brain". According to the company's planning, the fundraising project does not involve fixed asset investment such as civil engineering and plant buildings, and the project operation will rely on leased commercial office space for operation.
(Pictured: The company's main business composition)
The prospectus discloses that at the beginning of the establishment of Zero Point Count, it started with research and consulting services, and after successfully building an influential industry brand - "Zero Point Survey", it further developed multi-source data analysis and data intelligent application business.
According to public information, zero point number's core business is mainly divided into public affairs data analysis and decision support services, as well as business data analysis and decision support services.
The former mainly serves party and government organs, public institutions, research institutions and community organizations at all levels from the central to the grass-roots level, through investigation and research, data analysis, directly or indirectly provide support services for their decision-making, representative cases of such services include the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China "Survey on the Civilized Image of Chinese Outbound Tourists", etc., aiming to provide decision-making reference for relevant departments.
The services in the business field mainly serve enterprises in various industries, mainly involving consumer goods, finance, automobiles, real estate, TMT, logistics and other industries, through investigation and research, data analysis, to provide support services for their business decisions.
According to the prospectus, Zero Point Has served large enterprises such as China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, China CITIC Bank, Chinese Life, and China Mobile in the past.
Among them, in the public affairs business, the company's revenue during the reporting period was 188 million yuan, 185 million yuan and 187 million yuan, respectively. In the Company's commercial services business, it contributed revenue of RMB161 million, RMB196 million and RMB191 million respectively during the Reporting Period.
Unlike the same industry company Zhuosi Data focusing on the automotive industry, iResearch Consulting focusing on the new economy field, Huichen Information and other companies mainly serve customers in the commercial field, half of the business is oriented to party and government organs and enterprise units.
In the prospectus, Zero Points pointed out that the company is one of the leading data analysis and decision support service institutions in China, with a third-party evaluation agency related to the work of many ministries and commissions of the State Council and the vice president unit of the China Market Information Survey Industry Association, and has advantages in the public utilities such as party and government, enterprises and institutions.
However, it is not difficult to check its prospectus and find that most of the research projects of the central ministries and commissions served by Zero Points are auxiliary studies, and there is still a considerable distance from their claims to support decision-making reports. During the reporting period, the company's top five customers are relatively stable government customers only in The Haidian District Government of Beijing Municipality, which contributes about 15 million yuan of revenue to the company every year. Among the company's top five customers, other government users only include the Harbin Pingfang District Business Environment Construction Supervision Bureau and the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, and the contract amount of the year is less than 3 million yuan, accounting for about 2% of the annual revenue.
Large contracts for the company's public affairs business are mainly obtained through public bidding, competitive negotiation, and single-source procurement.
During the reporting period, the proportion of contracts signed by means of public bidding was only about 25%, and the annual amount was about 100 million yuan. The number of contracts signed by the company's other government procurement procedures accounted for more than 20%, and the average contract amount of projects signed in each period during the reporting period was 180,600 yuan, 204,800 yuan and 209,200 yuan, respectively.
Some people in the consulting industry pointed out that judging from the contract amount, most of the orders of party and government customers served by zero points are small orders, which is not a small gap with the description of the decision-making report of the central ministry and commission that it vigorously publicizes.
The large number of small orders has also led to a considerable number of public affairs businesses that need to be collected through third parties. During the reporting period, the amount and proportion of its third-party payment collection were significantly higher than that of Huichen Information and other companies in the same industry, and during the reporting period, the company's third-party payment collection amount was 27.1046 million yuan, 54.2962 million yuan and 43.6735 million yuan, respectively, mainly the designated unified payment for government procurement projects and the designated unified payment of enterprise groups.
Not only that, but the company's commercial business also faces a situation where the average individual contract amount is small. The prospectus discloses that the company's commercial business is mainly obtained through business negotiations, and the average contract amount of the projects signed in each period is 242,500 yuan, 255,600 yuan and 175,700 yuan, respectively, and the company also faces a situation of small customers and low-price competition in the commercial field.
<h4>Employees leave frequently</h4>
According to the report of the New Thinking Industry Research Center, the number of enterprises in China's information consulting industry currently exceeds 30,000, and the competition in the industry is fierce. According to zero points, the participants in the competition in the research and consulting industry continue to expand, and the overall competition in the industry is gradually intensifying. The company faces the risk of declining operating performance in an environment of gradually increasing market competition.
In fact, the employee turnover rate of Zero Point Count in the reporting period has been significantly higher than that of comparable companies in the same industry.
The total number of employees in the reporting period was 808, 948 and 891 respectively, and the overall turnover rate was 28.50%, 24.10% and 23.85% respectively. The number of the company's research and consultants was 378, 365 and 342 respectively in the reporting period, and the annual turnover rate was 30.51%, 30.87% and 28.30%, respectively, which was higher than the average turnover rate of the company.
(Pictured: There are many employees who leave frequently at zero point)
For the company's higher departure phenomenon, Zero Point Hash believes that it is mainly due to the continuous intensification of competition in the industry market and the increasingly strong demand for excellent talents in enterprises. The Company also acknowledges that if the Company's talent cannot meet the needs of continuous growth in business scale and continuous technology research and development, or the Company's brain drain, the Company will face the risk of talent shortage.
What is even more unusual is that during the reporting period, there were even two financial directors leaving the company, which is very rare among companies planning to IPO.
Among them, Leung Wai Yee served as the financial director and secretary of the board of directors of Zero Point Count from July 2016 to August 2017, and left the company in August 2017; Yin Lianfei served as the financial director of Zero Point count from August 2017 to May 2019, and left the company in May 2019. The two executives served only 12 months and 21 months, respectively.
In May 2019, when the company was preparing to go public, the company had to temporarily hire a director Zhou Lingu to temporarily act as the company's financial director, and in September of that year, Liu Sheng was officially appointed as the company's financial director.
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