Wanlin took the lead, and 185 billion rookies rushed to the market
Reporter|Yang Song Zhou Qi
Editor|Yan Ziwei
Wan Lin led the team, and hundreds of billions of unicorns took the lead in sprinting to IPO. On September 26, Cainiao filed a prospectus with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
48-year-old Wan Lin, who has been a rookie CEO for 6 years and has the title of "sleepless elite", has just been promoted to Alibaba partner this year.
In the prospectus, those who appeared with him in the list of executives were Cai Chongxin, chairman of Alibaba's board of directors, Dai Shan, CEO of Taotian Group, and Jiang Fan, CEO of International Digital Business Group.
With the blessing of the luxury team, Cainiao is expected to become the first stock after Alibaba's "separation".
The big guys gathered
Cainiao went public and had a plan for a long time.
In May, Ali's earnings report revealed that Cainiao will launch a listing plan.
"I hope that all Cainiao employees will accelerate their capacity building and start a new entrepreneurial journey." Wan Lin said in a letter to all employees.
After setting the goal, Wan Lin made a "quick and ruthless move" to pave the way for listing.
In the same month, Cainiao and Shentong Express launched the "Next Day Delivery" service with Smart Warehouse Express, covering the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta economic circles.
The following month, Cainiao announced that it planned to acquire a 25% stake in Shentong Express.
"After the completion of the transaction, Shentong will become a company directly invested by Cainiao, which will positively help Cainiao's pre-IPO valuation." Some industry insiders said.
According to Hurun's latest "2023 Global Unicorn List", Cainiao's valuation is about 185 billion yuan, ranking tenth in the world.
If the market value of Cainiao rises sharply after going public, Ali and a number of star investors will benefit.
According to the prospectus, Alibaba's three companies hold a total of 69.5% of Cainiao's shares.
After the spin-off, Alibaba will continue to hold more than 50% of Cainiao's shares. Cainiao will remain an Alibaba subsidiary.
In addition to Alibaba, Shen Guojun holds 13.9% of Cainiao's shares through a family trust and is Cainiao's second largest shareholder.
Shen Guojun is a Zhejiang businessman and the founder of Yintai Group. As soon as Rookie was founded, he joined as the first CEO.
Jack Ma's Yunfeng Fund, which holds 4.54% of Cainiao shares through its subsidiaries, is the third largest shareholder. He has repeatedly expressed his expectations for rookies, seeing it as Ali's "third pole" after e-commerce and Ant Financial.
Several express delivery companies such as ZTO, YTO and Yunda also hold a small number of Cainiao shares.
Daily income of 300 million
In fiscal 2023, Cainiao is the fastest growing business in Alibaba Group.
This fiscal year, Wanlin's salary was 7.415 million yuan, a slight increase from previous years, and he was also promoted, becoming a partner of Alibaba in July.
He joined Cainiao in 2014 after 9 years at Amazon, "doing logistics supply chain related things."
"When I was at Amazon, everyone focused on their own things, how to make the experience better, how to make the timeliness better, and the cost of the project." Wan Lin said that rookies have more issues to consider.
Under the management of professionals, Cainiao has outstanding performance.
In fiscal 2023 (the year ended March 31), the company's revenue was 77.8 billion yuan, an increase of 16% year-on-year.
Over the past three fiscal years, the compound annual growth rate is 21%.
The company has three major businesses, namely international logistics, domestic logistics and technology and other services.
Among them, international logistics is the largest source of income.
From April to June this year, Cainiao's revenue was 23.16 billion yuan, equivalent to nearly 300 million yuan per day, of which international logistics revenue was 11.1 billion yuan, accounting for 48%.
Cainiao has built a global logistics network covering more than 200 countries and regions, handling more than 1.5 billion cross-border parcels in fiscal 2023.
Wanlin is still increasing its investment in international logistics.
At the beginning of the year, Cainiao established three overseas regions in North America, Europe and Southeast Asia. He said that the overseas local logistics network will be built at the pace of 1-2 countries every year.
Yang Daqing, an expert in the logistics industry, told the "21CBR" reporter that the high proportion of revenue in the international market is due to the first development of AliExpress and other developments, as well as Cainiao's international layout.
This year, Cainiao went down to do express delivery and launched its own express brand. Its second largest business, domestic logistics, saw faster revenue growth.
Wan Lin said that Cainiao Express is a domestic logistics business product that the company focuses on building.
Relying on Tmall supermarket and other businesses, it does not worry about the order volume. The company said that domestic logistics services, revenue in the second quarter increased by 24% year-on-year, mainly due to the sharp growth of Cainiao Express and other factors.
Self-operated business also pushed up operating costs, with labor costs soaring by 82% from April to June.
The company's third largest business is technology and other services, including Cainiao Station, Cainiao App, logistics technology, logistics asset services and other businesses.
Cainiao Station has 170,000 stations; In fiscal 2023, the Cainiao APP exceeded 60 million monthly active users.
Pioneering is not easy
A rookie who flies solo, relying on Ali's orders.
Alibaba is its largest customer, contributing about 30% of its revenue. It can not only provide direct order volumes, but also attract customers.
When "Cainiao Express" was first launched, the signed brand merchants included Adopt a Cow, Tsingtao Beer, Tim Ke, Opera, Hema and so on.
Without exception, these are merchants who have cooperated with Alibaba for many years, and some of them are invested by Alibaba.
In May, in an internal letter, Wan Lin first thanked BaoTmall, Tmall Supermarket, Tmall Global, AliExpress and other rookie brothers business.
"Logistics and business flow need to be integrated." Yang Daqing said that after Alibaba's enterprises set up their own portals, they still developed together in an ecosystem.
After the successful listing, Cainiao may go out of Ali and get more external orders.
Reaching new customers is not easy.
In the traditional shelf e-commerce platform, JD.com, Pinduoduo and Ali have a direct competition relationship; Live streaming e-commerce platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou tend to find third-party express delivery cooperation.
In the risk column of the prospectus, Cainiao also said that if the new customer is a competitor of Alibaba, its relationship with the group may have a negative impact.
Yang Daqing believes that there are many domestic e-commerce platforms, and all kinds of logistics companies are rushing to eat.
Under the fierce competition situation, Cainiao recorded a net loss of 2.015 billion yuan, 2.286 billion yuan and 2.801 billion yuan in the financial year 2021-2023, respectively.
From April to June this year, Cainiao turned a profit with a net profit of 290 million yuan.
There are many challenges for Wanlin. As he said, going public does not mean sitting back and relaxing, but putting forward higher requirements and being prepared for long-term struggle.