According to Securities Star News, on April 16, 2024, Rhine Biotech (002166) announced that the company would accept institutional research on April 15, 2024, with the participation of Deng Xinyi, Chen Yanpeng, Li Xinzhi of Nuoan Fund, Jiang Luyan and Zhu Mingrui of Nord Fund, and Zhong Tianhao of Bosera Fund.
The details are as follows:
Q: What is the overall change in the sales volume and selling price of the company's natural sweeteners in 2023?
A: In 2023, the company's natural sweetener revenue will increase by 1.51% year-on-year, mainly due to the year-on-year decline in the average sales price in 2023, especially the price of monk fruit extract products, but the overall sales volume of natural sweeteners will maintain a good growth rate. Among them, the sales volume of Monk Fruit Extract (Powder) and Monk Fruit Flavored Juice both achieved significant growth, and the increase in sales volume made up for the impact of the decline in selling prices, driving the revenue of the natural sweetener business to achieve positive growth throughout the year.
Q: How is the monk fruit industry expected to change this year after experiencing oversupply last year?
A: It is expected that in 2024, the planting volume of monk fruit raw materials may decline, which will be reduced by a part compared with 2023, and the purchase price will recover. The company has said many times in the early stage that too low or too high raw material prices are not conducive to the long-term stable development of the plant extraction industry, and we expect that the raw material side can achieve a stable and high-quality supply of raw materials every year. In this way, the reasonable profits of farmers are guaranteed, plant extraction enterprises can obtain stable gross profit space, brands can also purchase extract products at more stable prices, and the entire industry will also enter a more virtuous circle.
Q: What are the company's expectations for natural sweetener sales and customer expansion in 2024?
A: In the first quarter of 2024, the overall development trend of the fourth quarter of last year will continue, combined with the overall market environment this year, the recovery of consumer demand and other changes, we expect the company's natural sweetener sales to maintain a growth level of 15-20% this year, and the growth rate is mainly from the food and beverage market.
Judging from our existing customer situation, the company's customer coverage has a certain breadth, and the company's focus at this stage is to tap customer potential, achieve in-depth cooperation with customers, serve customers' core product lines through customized formulas, and empower the brand's new product development. This year, the joint R&D team between the company and DSM-Firmenich has been officially established, and we will focus on strengthening our formulation application service capabilities to accelerate the wider and deeper application of natural sweeteners in this huge potential market in China.
Q: Can you tell us about the final execution of the last 5-year contract with DSM-Firmenich?
A: The overall completion of the last five-year contract between the company and Firmenich was in line with both expectations, and it was true that the target was not fully met from a financial and statistical point of view, but from a sales business point of view, it can be said that the target was achieved. Looking at the past 5 years of cooperation, both parties are very satisfied, DSM-Firmenich has always listed the natural sweetener business as its strategic business layout, and has also given close cooperation and support in business communication, resource allocation and market expansion during the cooperation period. Therefore, both parties are also very willing to achieve further in-depth cooperation, in the new contract, in addition to the increase in the amount of cooperation, the two sides have also formulated a more open agreement in terms of customers and cooperation areas.
Q: How does the company expect the sales volume and price of stevia to change this year?
A: On the raw material side, the price of stevia raw materials is expected to increase slightly in 2024, but the planting volume is not expected to change significantly, which will drive the increase in the price of the product side as a whole. Since the fourth quarter of last year, the gross profit margin of stevia extract has recovered rapidly, and it is expected to continue to maintain a good level throughout 2024.
Q: What are the reasons for the significant changes in the company's three fees in 2023?
Answer: In recent years, the company's three fee rates have maintained a relatively stable level, and the major changes last year mainly included the growth of sales expenses, mainly due to the increase in the company's demand for exhibitions and travel after the epidemic was liberalized, and the increase in management expenses was mainly affected by the shutdown losses of overseas factories and share-based payment expenses.
Q: Is the main reason hindering the development of the company's industrial hemp business still in terms of industry policies?
Answer: The company's industrial hemp business development in the early stage is slow, mainly due to the uncertainty of industry policies and the lack of market maturity. Some investors believe that the company's entry into the industrial hemp industry is completely cross-industry, but this is not the case. For the company, the industrial hemp business is only a new variety in the main business, Rhine based on more than 20 years of experience in plant extraction, industrial hemp has the potential to develop into the largest single product in the market in the history of plant extraction, so it has adopted the strategy of layout in advance, and the development of any large single product will take a certain amount of time, such as the early stevia, monk fruit, so we need to give more time to the development of the industrial hemp market.
The company has always been optimistic about the development of industrial hemp business, and it can also be felt from the global policy opening process in recent years that the positive factors of the industry are constantly gathering and gradually moving towards a broader application space. At present, at the industrial hemp exhibition, consumers can see all kinds of food and beverages, health products, cosmetics, massage creams and other products with industrial hemp extracts added, but in terms of extensiveness, we believe that the market space of food and beverage will be the most worth looking forward to.
Q: What are the main industrial hemp business plans of the company in 2024?
Answer: On the raw material side, due to the collapse of industrial hemp market prices in the early stage and the sharp clearance of production capacity, there is a problem of fault in the supply chain of the current industrial hemp industry chain.
On the sales side, the company has determined that the atomization field will be the key development direction of the industrial hemp business this year, and by cooperating with Chen Hao's team, relying on its brand operation experience and channel resources, and superimposing the CBD derivative conversion technology mastered by the company, the company will make every effort to start the market expansion of the industrial hemp business, accelerate the release of factory capacity, and strive to achieve the performance goal of substantial loss reduction of industrial hemp projects in 2024.
Q: From the market changes in the entire sugar substitute industry, the fourth quarter of last year is basically an inflection point, and the volume and price have a positive trend.
A: First of all, we are very happy to see that the recovery of downstream demand has driven the entire sugar substitute industry out of an upward development trend. Last year, the prices of natural sweeteners and sugar alcohol products fell to a certain extent, but the reasons were slightly different, natural sweeteners were mainly due to the suppression of downstream demand, oversupply led to intensified competition in the industry, which in turn affected product prices;
Compared with sugar alcohol products, high cost performance is the advantage of natural sweeteners, especially stevia products, and it is expected that the application of natural sweeteners in China will gradually accelerate in the future with the deepening of formula application in China. Last year, the company has developed more than 120 kinds of compound products, and realized the synthesis of some rare ingredients in natural sweeteners, which will have a leading competitive advantage in providing customers with customized and personalized services and products, and is expected to drive the revenue and profit of natural sweetener business.
Q: According to the company's past financial data analysis, 12% is the company's net profit margin, how long is the company's net profit expected to recover to this level?
A: Based on the current business development, the company expects the full-year revenue growth rate in 2024 to be
15%-20%, the net profit of the main business is expected to more than double, although there will be some changes in the company's expenses this year, the new plant will bring about an increase in the depreciation expense of some fixed assets, and the company's investment in talent introduction and market development is expected to increase this year, but we believe that the net profit margin in 2024 is expected to recover to the average level of previous years.
Q: The dividend plan approved by the board of directors of the company is 2 yuan for every 10 shares, is it considered an overdistribution?
Answer: The company's net profit in 2023 is indeed a low point, but considering that the company has not implemented the 2021 dividend due to the need to promote non-public offerings, and the current supervision and market encourage listed companies to actively pay dividends, the board of directors finally formulated a dividend plan of 2 yuan for every 10 shares. In the formulation of this plan, the company has fully considered the accounts receivable and payment, etc., and will not adversely affect the normal operation of the company. After the implementation of the dividend plan, the company's cumulative cash dividend amount in the past three years has reached 58% of the cumulative net profit in the past three years. The company also hopes to truly give investors through cash dividends, so that all shareholders can share the company's development results and performance dividends.
The main business of Rhine Biotech (002166) is the production and operation of natural health products, and continues to focus on the field of plant functional ingredient extraction.
According to the 2023 annual report of Rhine Biotech, the company's main revenue was 1.494 billion yuan, an increase of 6.65% year-on-year, the net profit attributable to the parent company was 82.511 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 53.84%, and the non-net profit was 20.6156 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 86.17%, of which in the fourth quarter of 2023, the company's single-quarter main revenue was 605 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 43.4%, and the single-quarter net profit attributable to the parent company was 41.6103 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1322.72%; The non-net profit deducted in a single quarter was 16.9981 million yuan, an increase of 395.75% year-on-year, the debt ratio was 30.72%, the investment income was 4.8277 million yuan, the financial expenses were 24.4286 million yuan, and the gross profit margin was 24.41%.
There are no agency ratings on the stock in the last 90 days. Margin data shows that the stock has a net financing outflow of 34,367,400 in the past three months, with a decrease in the financing balance, and a net outflow of 262,900 with a decrease in the balance of securities borrowing and lending.
The above content is compiled by Securities Star based on public information, generated by an algorithm (Network Information Calculation No. 310104345710301240019), and has nothing to do with the position of this site, if there is a problem with the data, please contact us. This article is a compilation of data and does not constitute any investment advice for you, investment is risky, please make a cautious decision.