Hanwang Technology has been listed for 14 years without dividends, and Xu Dongqing cashed out 270 million

Yangtze River Business Daily News ● Yangtze River Business Daily reporter Shen Yourong

Hanwang Technology (002362. SZ) when will it be able to return to shareholders?

In 2023, Hanwang Technology's operating performance is still poor. According to the annual report, the company's operating income exceeded 1.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase from a decrease to an increase, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company (hereinafter referred to as "net profit") was -135 million yuan. The company's net profit in 2022 was also a loss.

Hanwang Technology is deeply engaged in the technical direction of artificial intelligence such as perception, cognition, and human-computer interaction, and uses AI solutions as the starting point to empower the digital and intelligent transformation and upgrading of related fields.

From the perspective of operating performance data, the profitability of Hanwang Technology is low. Since its listing in 2010, the company has achieved a cumulative net profit of nearly 600 million yuan.

For the industrial layout, the cumulative amount of equity financing of Hanwang Technology is 1.701 billion yuan. As of the end of 2023, the company's total assets are 1.896 billion yuan.

A reporter from the Yangtze River Business Daily found that in the 14 years since its listing, Hanwang Technology has never paid cash dividends. As of the end of 2023, the company's undistributed profit was -471 million yuan.

The actual controllers of Hanwang Technology are Liu Yingjian and Xu Dongqing, who currently hold a total of 27.23% of the company's equity. Wind data shows that since its listing, Xu Dongqing has cashed out about 270 million yuan by reducing his holdings.

Losses for two consecutive years are waiting to be broken out

Hanwang Technology's operating performance has not been substantially improved.

According to the annual report, in 2023, Hanwang Technology's operating income will be 1.450 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.56%, the net profit will be a loss of 135 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.65%, and the non-net profit will be a loss of 157 million yuan, an increase of 12.82%.

In this regard, Hanwang Technology explained that the company's management actively sought new breakthroughs, a number of new products were launched one after another, the sales revenue of some products increased significantly, the company's total revenue increased slightly year-on-year, and the comprehensive gross profit margin of finished products increased slightly year-on-year. In order to maintain the leading technology and product innovation, the company continued to maintain large and high-intensity R&D investment, and R&D expenditure increased year-on-year. In addition, in order to expand the brand and market influence of the company's smart products, the market expenses increased year-on-year.

In 2023, the company's sales expenses and R&D expenses will be 426 million yuan and 246 million yuan respectively, a year-on-year increase of 19.46% and 23.21%.

In 2022, Hanwang Technology's operating income will be 1.401 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 13.19%, and the net profit and non-net profit will be 136 million yuan and 139 million yuan, respectively, a year-on-year decrease of 350.63% and 410.80%.

Historically, Hanwang Technology's operating income was the highest year in 2021, with an operating income of 1.613 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.74%, but the net profit of that year was 54 million yuan and the non-net profit was 45 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 47.98% and 54.81% respectively.

Hanwang Technology was founded in 1998 and landed on the A-share market in March 2010. The company said on its official website that it is a pioneer in the domestic artificial intelligence industry, and has been carefully cultivating the industry for more than 20 years, and has always been committed to the research and application of intelligent interaction technology in multiple fields. It has a number of core technologies with independent intellectual property rights in the fields of handwriting recognition, optical character recognition (OCR), face recognition, handwriting input, etc., among which handwritten Chinese character recognition won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, and OCR recognition won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award.

Over the years, the company has focused on the research and development of pattern recognition and intelligent interaction, and has accumulated a number of core technologies with independent intellectual property rights in various directions. At present, the company has a vertically integrated precision manufacturing base for the electronics industry in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and its technology and products have gone abroad and radiated to overseas markets such as Japan, North America, South America, and Europe.

However, Hanwang Technology's operating performance is generally poor. From 2011 to 2015, the company deducted non-net profit for five consecutive years.

Wind data shows that in the 14 years from 2010 to 2023, the cumulative net profit realized by Hanwang Technology is about a loss of about 593 million yuan.

Raised 1.7 billion yuan with zero dividends

Although it is still mired in operating losses, it cannot be denied that Hanwang Technology has also worked hard.

Hanwang Technology has been acquired many times to carry out industrial layout.

Wind data shows that in 2017, Hanwang Technology and its related parties invested a total of 24.29 million yuan to acquire part of the debts of Beijing Film Research and 100% equity of Hanwang Film Research.

In 2022, Hanwang Technology acquired 10% equity of Hanwang Zhiyuan, 13% equity of Hanwang Digital, and 100% equity of Qingfeng Intelligent Media. In 2023, the company will increase its capital and obtain 3.1% equity in Zhongkeyue.

In 2010, Hanwang Technology was listed through IPO, raising 1.131 billion yuan for the construction of Hanwang's multilingual and multi-platform text recognition software system and products, e-paper intelligent reading and writing terminals, industry-specific information collection products based on OCR recognition technology, and industrialization of digitizer-related equipment and software technology.

In 2021, the company implemented a private placement and raised 569 million yuan. The funds will be used for the construction of a new generation of natural language cognitive technology and text big data open platform and application system, a new generation of neural network image video and humanoid behavior analysis platform and enterprise application projects, the core chip of upgraded pen touch technology and pen interaction intelligent digital product solutions, as well as to replenish working capital.

IPO and private placement, Hanwang Technology's equity financing totaled 1.701 billion yuan.

What is highly questioned is that Hanwang Technology "reached out" to the market to obtain more than 1.7 billion yuan, while its return to the market was 0 yuan.

Since its listing in 2010, Hanwang Technology has never paid cash dividends. In the first year of listing, the company made a profit of 87.9016 million yuan, and the undistributed profit at the end of the year was 211 million yuan, but the company did not pay cash dividends.

At present, the two hold a total of 27.23% of the company's shares, and Liu Yingjian serves as the chairman of the company, before that, Xu Dongqing's younger brother Xu Dongjian served as the company's vice president and resigned in 2023.

Wind data shows that from November 2014 to early 2020, Xu Dongqing reduced his holdings many times, with a total of about 270 million yuan in cash. Xu Dongjian has also reduced his holdings several times.

To sum up, although Hanwang Technology does not pay dividends for a long time and does not have the ability to pay dividends in the short term, Xu Dongqing, one of the actual controllers of the company, has cashed out more than 200 million yuan by reducing his holdings.

In the era of AI, as an industry pioneer, when will Hanwang Technology achieve industry leadership, when will it lead in profitability, and then return shareholders in a big way?