On the evening of August 14, iFLYTEK issued an announcement that Liu Qingfeng, chairman of the company, reduced his holdings of 39.9561 million shares of the company.
After this reduction, Liu Qingfeng's shareholding in iFLYTEK decreased from 168 million shares to 128 million, and his shareholding ratio was reduced from 7.27% to 5.54%. This equity change will not lead to a change in the control of iFLYTEK, and the actual controller of the listed company is still Liu Qingfeng.
Source: iFLYTEK
The announcement explained in detail the reasons for the reduction, saying that in the 15 years since its listing in May 2008, Liu Qingfeng has increased his holdings of the company's shares four times in order to stabilize the company's equity structure, introduce strategic investors and maintain the company's market value, and only once in early 2020 to repay the borrowed principal that China Mobile co-invested when it entered the shares, fully demonstrating his firm confidence in the company's long-term development.
In July 2021, in order to consolidate the company's control, meet the working capital needs brought about by the rapid development of the company's business, and enhance the company's ability to resist risks, Liu Qingfeng raised 2.35 billion yuan through pledge financing and other means to subscribe for the company's non-public offering shares, and the above debt has matured. To this end, Liu Qingfeng needs to reduce his shareholding to repay the principal of the above-mentioned loan.
A number of important shareholders of iFLYTEK "relayed" their holdings
Affected by this, on August 16, iFLYTEK touched the drop limit in the afternoon, closing at 58.48 yuan / share, down 8.63%. Judging from the announcement, a number of important shareholders of iFLYTEK have recently "relayed" their holdings.
Huishang New Media reporters combed and found that on March 22, iFLYTEK's third largest shareholder, China University of Science and Technology Asset Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "HKUST Holdings"), issued a plan to reduce its shareholding. On July 12, iFLYTEK issued an announcement on the implementation of shareholders' share reduction, showing that HKUST Holdings reduced its holdings of 8421050 shares from April 25, 2023 to June 20, 2023, with an average price of about 70 yuan per share. At the same time, HKUST originally planned to reduce its holdings of no more than 23230843 shares in the company by block trade or concentrated auction within six months after fifteen trading days from the date of the pre-disclosure announcement (March 22, 2023). After iFLYTEK announced its reduction, although the stock price fell short-term, it still hit a new high of 81.9 yuan per share, with a market value of nearly 200 billion yuan.
On the evening of July 31, iFLYTEK issued an announcement disclosing that China Mobile, the company's largest shareholder, plans to reduce its holdings by no more than 23,156,700 shares through concentrated bidding or block trading from August 22, 2023 to December 31, 2023, accounting for about 1% of the company's current total share capital. As of the date of disclosure of the announcement, China Mobile held 247,714,200 shares of iFLYTEK, accounting for 10.70% of the company's total share capital. According to the data, the source of the shares planned to be reduced is that China Mobile obtained the shares issued by the listed company in 2013 through the non-public offering of shares of the participating company. As for the reasons for the reduction, iFLYTEK's announcement shows:
The screenshot of Huishang new media is from the announcement of iFLYTEK on August 16
Just after iFLYTEK announced on August 14 that Liu Qingfeng, chairman of the company, reduced his shareholding in the company, on August 16, iFLYTEK issued an announcement on the change in the equity of the actual controller by more than 1%. iFLYTEK Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the "Company") disclosed the "Announcement on the Change of Shareholding of the Chairman" (Announcement No. 2023-056) after the close of business on August 14, 2023. Since Chairman Liu Qingfeng is the actual controller of the company, after the change in the shareholding of the chairman, correspondingly, the proportion of voting rights held by the actual controller of the company has changed by more than 1% compared with the previous disclosure of the "Announcement on the Change of Actual Controller's Equity by More than 1%".
The screenshot of Huishang new media is from the announcement of iFLYTEK on August 16
Recently, many investors have asked questions about Liu Qingfeng's reduction of shares. The reporter of Huishang New Media learned from the interactive platform of iFLYTEK on the official website of Special Stock that one of the investors asked: "What kind of considerations is Chairman Liu Qingfeng's choice of this time before the major version upgrade conference of Xinghuo model on August 15 to reduce his holdings in large transactions?" ”
Screenshot of Huishang New Media from the official website of Special Stock Stock
In this regard, iFLYTEK gave detailed answers mainly from the aspects of business performance and product upgrade conference.
iFLYTEK said that the short-term operating results in the first half of 2023 are under great pressure, and if it reduces its holdings before the release of the half-year report, it may form a major misleading to the market under the condition of information asymmetry. On August 15, the iFLYTEK Spark Model V2.0 conference will be held, which will be a major upgrade in code capabilities and multi-modal capabilities that are highly concerned by the industry, and at the same time jointly release a Spark all-in-one machine based on domestic computing power with Huawei, which is expected to arouse the same high attention of the capital market after the product release as the previous two conferences.
Based on the above two factors, if Liu Qingfeng reduces his holdings of stocks to repay debts after the press conference, the company's active marketing activities around the iFLYTEK Spark model may be misinterpreted by the market as the purpose of reducing holdings and deliberately speculate on stocks, which will have an unnecessary negative impact on the next stage of industrial development. Liu Qingfeng chose to reduce his stock holdings to repay debts after the release of the semi-annual report and before the major version upgrade conference of the major version of the Xinghuo Cognitive Large Model, and at the same time, in order to avoid the impact on the secondary market, he adopted the method of block trading and paid the corresponding discount price. In addition, in the 15 years since the company's listing, Liu Qingfeng is firmly optimistic about the development prospects of the artificial intelligence industry and iFLYTEK, and has increased his shareholding in the company four times, and the only two reductions were to repay the loan, and did not sell 1 cent more shares for consumption. All the funds borrowed were invested in the production and operation of iFLYTEK.
According to the 2022 annual report of iFLYTEK, Liu Qingfeng is the founder and legal representative of iFLYTEK, a doctor of signal and information processing from the University of Science and Technology of China, and an executive director of Anhui Yanzhi Technology Co., Ltd. and the chairman of Antelope Industrial Internet Co., Ltd.
According to the half-year report released not long ago, iFLYTEK achieved revenue of 7.842 billion yuan in the first half of the year, and performed well in the second quarter, achieving revenue of 4.954 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.68% and a month-on-month increase of 71.56%; Quarterly gross profit was RMB1,938 million, up 7.80% year-on-year and 60.21% month-on-month. Operating cash flow turned positive, with cash inflows of $140 million, an increase of $575 million over the same period last year.
Specifically, the growth rate of smart cars, smart finance, smart healthcare, open platforms and consumer businesses is obvious. In the first half of the year, the revenue of the four major businesses was 210 million yuan, 90 million yuan, 190 million yuan and 2.42 billion yuan, respectively, a year-on-year increase of 26.14%, 22.19%, 37.13% and 21.6%.
Source | Huishang New Media Comprehensive Beijing Daily, CCTV.com, Enterprise Announcements, Special Stock Official Website, etc
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