Camellia shares have paid a cumulative dividend of nearly 300 million yuan in seven years after listing, and Chen Kuisheng's family plans to reduce their holdings and cash out nearly 700 million

DoNews reported on March 21 that according to Leju Finance and Economics, most people should be familiar with the home furnishing and daily chemical brand "Camellia". Its products cover a wide range of products, from cotton swabs and steel wool balls to storage boxes and plastic stools, touching almost all aspects of people's daily life at home.

It is with these inconspicuous small objects that Camellia shares (603615. SH) landed on the A-share market in February 2017, becoming the first stock in the industry. And the Chen family behind it is also full of glory, all of them have a net worth of hundreds of millions.

However, in recent years, the profitability of Camellia shares has weakened. Since its listing in 2017, its operating income has fluctuated around 700 million yuan, and it is difficult to make a breakthrough. The net profit has been losing for two consecutive years in the past 2021 and 2022.

When it was time to hand in the paper for another year, on March 19, Camellia announced its 2023 annual report. According to the data, in the past year, the company achieved revenue of 657 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.81%, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 4.6945 million yuan. Revenue fell again, but net profit finally turned around.

The Chen family is in power, and the chairman's salary is not as good as that of the deputy general manager

Camellia is an enterprise that originated in Fuzhou. According to public information, it was established in 1997, formerly known as Gushan Ocean Plastic Factory in Fuzhou Yuanxi Village, which was affiliated in Fuzhou Yuanxi Village at that time, and belonged to the village collective enterprise, mainly engaged in plastic products.

The investors of the enterprise are five members of the Chen family, of which Chen Guangsheng, Chen Mingsheng, Chen Baojia, Chen Kuisheng and Lin Shifu contributed 1.26 million yuan, 630,000 yuan, 378,000 yuan, 315,000 yuan and 315,000 yuan respectively. Chen Baojia is the father of the three brothers Chen Guangsheng, Chen Mingsheng and Chen Kuisheng, and is the father-in-law of Lin Shifu. In the beginning, the whole family was both a worker and a boss in a small plastic workshop.

In 2007, Chen Guang died of illness, and his equity in the company was inherited by his youngest son, Chen Guanyu. As a result, Chen Guanyu also became the company's largest shareholder.

In 2008, the company changed its name to "Camellia Co., Ltd." and has since embarked on the fast track, and in January 2013, it was restructured into "Camellia Co., Ltd." With the successful listing on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2017, Camellia Co., Ltd. has transformed from an obscure plastic processing factory to a well-known plastic products company, and the Chen brothers have also become a hot local capital figure.

From the perspective of equity structure, Chen Guanyu is currently the major shareholder, holding 24.94% of the shares, and Chen Mingsheng, Chen Kuisheng, Chen Fusheng and Lin Shifu hold 10.71%, 9.9%, 5.35% and 5.01% of the shares respectively. The above five people hold a total of 59.82% of the shares and are the joint actual controllers of Camellia shares.

It is worth mentioning that after the company was listed, Chen Guanyu transferred 2.81% of the company's shares to his sister Chen Sumin through a block transaction, so Chen Sumin also became a concerted actor of the actual controller of Camellia shares. At present, many people hold important positions in Camellia at the same time, among which Chen Kuisheng serves as the chairman, and Chen Mingsheng, Lin Shifu and Chen Guanyu serve as directors of the company.

Chen Kuisheng has the heaviest burden among the members of the Chen family and receives the highest salary. The annual report shows that in 2023, he will receive a salary of 985,300 yuan as chairman. However, among the 17 current and resigned directors, supervisors and senior managers during the reporting period, the highest salary is Chen Zhihai, deputy general manager, with an annual salary of 1.5289 million yuan.

According to the biographical information, Chen Zhihai used to be the deputy general manager of Qingdao Haiguan Mould Co., Ltd., the director of the technology department, the director of the quality department and the manufacturing department of Qingdao Household Appliance Process Equipment Research Institute, the director of the pilot test department of Haier Group, the general manager of the parts department and the director and general manager of Qingdao Overseas Chinese Industrial Co., Ltd.

The founder's family plans to reduce its holdings and cash out nearly 700 million

"The company's shares will not be reduced within three years after the company's shares are listed, and within two years after the listing for three years, the annual reduction will not exceed 20% of the number of shares held at that time. ”

When seeking to go public, the Chen family promised the above-mentioned restrictions on shareholding reduction in the prospectus. The intention is to achieve and secure control of the company by holding the company's shares for a long time, and then continue to share in the company's operating results.

After the listing, the Chen family did strictly fulfill the commitment to reduce holdings before the listing. But as soon as the "five-year contract" passed, they couldn't wait to start reducing their holdings and cashing out.

On the evening of November 17, 2023, Camellia Co., Ltd. announced that the actual controller of the company and its persons acting in concert plan to transfer no more than 53,477,500 shares of the company held by them through agreement transfer in the next 3 months, that is, no more than 22.11% of the company's total share capital.

For this large-scale reduction, the reason given by Camellia shares is to optimize the shareholder structure. It can be seen from the K-line chart that at the beginning of 2023, the share price of Camellia shares was 7.94 yuan per share, and since then it has experienced a small range of ups and downs for several months, and it has continued to rise until early October. By the close of trading on November 17, the stock price closed at 12.57 yuan per share, an increase of 58% from the beginning of the year.

According to the plan, after the completion of the transfer of this agreement, the actual controller still holds 41.89% of the company's shares and is still the actual controller of the company. However, if calculated based on the closing price of the day, it is enough to cash out 672 million yuan.

According to Leju Finance and Economics, on January 2 this year, Camellia Co., Ltd. announced that Chen Guanyu, Chen Kuisheng and Lin Shifu transferred a total of 5.28% of the company's shares to the No. 6 Private Securities Investment Fund with gold content according to the agreement, with a transfer price of 13.31 yuan per share and a total transfer price of 170 million yuan, and the transfer registration has been completed.

In fact, before the reduction of cash, the actual controller of Camellia shares has carried out several rounds of shareholding reduction actions. For example, in August 2023, Camellia Co., Ltd. announced that Chen Guanyu, one of the actual controllers, intends to transfer 5% of the company's shares to Huang Jianfeng, a natural person, at a transfer price of 9.38 yuan per share, and is expected to cash out 113 million yuan.

However, on November 15, 2023, the company announced that the agreement transfer plan was terminated. At that time, some people speculated that it may be because the share price of Camellia shares rose significantly at that time, and the two parties had a disagreement on price.

In November 2022, Chen Kuisheng reduced his holdings of 3.972 million shares of the company to the company's 2022 employee stock ownership plan and major distributors through block trading, accounting for 1.64% of the company's total share capital, and cashed out about 27.4 million yuan, and in June 2021, Chen Mingsheng reduced his holdings of 6.4 million shares, accounting for 2.62% of the company's total share capital, and cashed out about 53.4 million yuan......

In the 7 years since its listing, the cumulative dividend has been nearly 300 million

Listed for more than seven years, the performance of Camellia shares has been tepid. The net profit could reach 93.6224 million yuan in 2017, and then it has been declining all the way to a net loss of 21 million yuan and 19 million yuan in 2021 and 2022, respectively. In 2023, it will barely turn losses into profits, and the net profit will only be 4.6945 million yuan.

Although the profitability is not good, Camellia shares are very generous in dividends. According to statistics from Leju Finance and Economics, in the six years from 2017 to 2022, its net profit totaled 232 million yuan, and the company paid a total of 270 million yuan in cash dividends. The Chen family is the biggest beneficiary of dividends, about 180 million yuan.

Specifically, in 2017, the dividend was 60 million yuan, with a dividend rate of 60.98%, in 2018 and 2019, dividends of 48 million yuan and 147 million yuan were distributed, with a dividend rate of 71.43% and 206.9%, respectively, and in 2020, the company paid a dividend of 36.6825 million yuan, with a dividend rate of 88.24%. In 2021 and 2022, because of continuous losses, the company did not pay dividends.

What is highly questioned is that in 2023, Camellia shares will still have to pay dividends when the profit is less than 5 million yuan, and the company said that the cash dividend amount in the reporting period is 36.273 million yuan, and the dividend amount accounts for 772.67% of the net profit.

According to Leju Finance, in the interim report in 2023, Camellia also announced an interim dividend of 24.182 million yuan, and the dividend amount accounted for 567.61% of the net profit.