Due to the layout of computing power leasing, Hongbo shares had unlimited scenery in the secondary market last year, but recently, this "computing power bull stock" has encountered trouble.
According to media reports, Hongbo shares recently attracted a warning letter from the Securities Regulatory Bureau and a letter of concern from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange due to the "big change of face" due to the performance forecast profit and loss, and it didn't take long for its core subsidiary Beijing InBev Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "InBev Digital") to be rumored to be "messed into a pot of porridge", "CEO Zhou Weiwei (wěi) and others were dismissed for serious dereliction of duty, personal fraud", "equity war began" and other rumors spread.
On the evening of April 16, InBev Digital issued a clarification announcement on its official WeChat, saying that it had dismissed some employees from their positions in accordance with relevant regulations, but did not mention the specific names of those who were dismissed, nor did it say whether Zhou Weiwei was involved.
On the evening of the 19th, Hongbo announced that the board of directors agreed to dismiss Zhou Weiwei as deputy general manager, effective from the date of deliberation and approval of the board of directors. After the dismissal, Zhou Weiwei no longer holds any position in the company, and this dismissal will not have a significant impact on the company's daily production and operation activities. As of the disclosure date of the announcement, Zhou Weiwei held 850,000 shares of the company, accounting for 0.17% of the company's total shares.
It is worth noting that Hongbo shares can stand on the cusp of computing power, precisely because of the business of InBev Digital, Zhou Weiwei is the key person in the company's ability to connect with NVIDIA.
Performance forecast "change of face"
The fuse of Hongbo shares' incident pointed to the company's "changing face" performance forecast.
On January 10 this year, Hongbo shares disclosed a 2023 annual performance forecast. At that time, the performance forecast said that during the reporting period, it achieved a turnaround and a significant year-on-year increase in operating income.
However, on the evening of April 12, Hongbo Co., Ltd. disclosed the announcement of the revision of the 2023 annual performance forecast, adjusting the expected profit of 37.4 million yuan ~ 56.1 million yuan to a loss of 50 million yuan ~ 58 million yuan, and the estimated operating income from 850 million yuan ~ 998 million yuan to 590 million yuan ~ 650 million yuan.
There are significant differences between the two performance forecasts and changes in the nature of profit and loss, which has aroused great concern from the regulators, and the Fujian Securities Regulatory Bureau has taken administrative supervision measures to issue a warning letter to Ni Hui, chairman of Hongbo Co., Ltd., and Pu Wei, chief financial officer, and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange has also issued a letter of concern, and the company and related parties will be subject to disciplinary proceedings in the future.
Why is there such a big difference between the two earnings forecasts in three months?
A contract payment of 500 million yuan from InBev Digital may be the key to the "change of face" of Hongbo's performance.
On October 19, 2023, Beijing Jingneng International Holdings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing Jingneng") and InBev Digital Technology signed an official announcement on the procurement and deployment of 1024PFLOPS computing power construction equipment for the first phase of the Intelligent Computing Center, with a total transaction value of 1 billion yuan.
According to the announcement of the revision of the performance forecast, Hongbo Co., Ltd. said that the cooperation in the procurement of equipment for the construction of Beijing Jingneng's intelligent computing center has received the first contract payment of 499.84 million yuan by December 31, 2023, and the company has delivered part of the equipment and obtained the phased equipment acceptance confirmation.
However, Shanghui Accounting Firm (Special General Partnership) believes that the company should not recognize revenue until all equipment of the project is delivered and the final deployment is completed, and the relevant income will be deducted from the operating income. Therefore, based on the principle of prudence, the financial indicators in the earnings forecast are corrected.
According to a financial person's analysis, it is indeed easy to dispute whether this kind of payment is included in the current year's revenue. However, when it comes to large orders, the company and the auditor generally need to confirm this matter before the notice is disclosed. However, at present, the investigation results of the incident have not yet been released, and the responsible person is not clear, so it cannot be judged that the big "change of face" in the performance forecast is the "fuse" of the suspected executive turmoil.
On April 16, the aforementioned post titled "It is forbidden to privately disseminate the latest personnel appointments and dismissals of the company and its superior companies and the explanation of the relevant situation through any public or non-public channels such as Feishu, WeChat, and Weibo".
The document shows: "The company and the superior company made a decision in accordance with the law to terminate the labor contract with Zhou Weiwei and others, and Zhou Weiwei and others have resigned. ”
In addition, the document shows that the reason for the dismissal of the relevant personnel was serious dereliction of duty and malpractice, such as suspected of using their positions to facilitate the embezzlement of the company's property, illegal trading of shares publicly issued by the superior company, insider trading, etc., and said that "it has been reported to the public security organs and the China Securities Regulatory Bureau in accordance with the law".
According to the Securities Times, Zhou Weiwei confirmed the existence of the above documents to reporters, but she did not recognize the validity of the documents.
Zhou Weiwei himself responded: This is an incident of privately carving the official seal or even snatching the official seal. At present, the access control of InBev Digital employees has been cancelled and replaced, and the office premises are guarded by security guards, and all employees cannot enter, which affects the normal office. does not recognize the validity of the dismissal document of InBev Digital. In response to the illegal trading of stocks, Zhou Weiwei said, "This is a criminal charge without evidence, and the lawyer has been preparing materials for the other party's defamation." ”
According to the Securities Times, Zhou Weiwei disagrees with the adjustment of revenue recognition, but he also said that he respects the opinion of the auditor.
Zhou Weiwei believes that Beijing Jingneng has paid the first contract payment, and the equipment involved is entrusted to InBev Digital Technology in a quasi-operational state, and the revenue should be recognized.
He was a key person in contacting NVIDIA
At the beginning of 2023, ChatGPT is popular, the demand for computing power is stimulated, and the stock price of Hongbo shares has been "soaring". On August 22, 2023, Hongbo's share price closed at 45.29 yuan per share, hitting a record high. Calculated from the previous weighting price, the closing price of Hongbo shares on that day was 10 times that of 4.51 yuan per share on May 6, 2022, thus becoming a "10 baggers" for about 16 months. In 2023, Hongbo shares will rise by nearly 600%, and the market will pay close attention.
According to the first financial report, industry insiders said that Zhou Weiwei is the key figure of Hongbo shares' cross-border computing power, and in the early days of the establishment of InBev Digital, she was fully responsible for the preparation of InBev Digital Technology Co., Ltd., and continued to promote cooperation with NVIDIA.
Hongbo shares is one of the leading enterprises in China's lottery printing industry,The main business has nothing to do with computing power.
In August 2022, Hongbo Co., Ltd. established a wholly-owned subsidiary, InBev Digital, and appointed Zhou Weiwei as the general manager of InBev Digital, fully responsible for the preparation, technology research and development, team building, business development and other work of InBev Digital. In April 2023, Hongbo Co., Ltd. announced that Zhou Weiwei was appointed as the vice president of Hongbo Co., Ltd., responsible for the company's business in the artificial intelligence AI sector.
Before joining InBev Digital, Zhou Weiwei was the senior vice president of 36Kr, and Hongbo Co., Ltd. believes that Zhou Weiwei's "international educational background, experience and business resources enable the company's artificial intelligence-related business to be quickly implemented". Zhou Weiwei also publicly stated that she was the first to contact NVIDIA. It is the three words "NVIDIA" that have opened the road of "big bull stocks" of Hongbo shares.
Zhou Weiwei was once listed as an equity incentive object last year. According to an equity incentive announcement of Hongbo shares in July last year, Zhou Weiwei was the deputy general manager of Hongbo shares at the time, responsible for the business of listed companies in the artificial intelligence and AI sector. Li Runfeng, Meng Jianxiong, Zhai Mengmeng and Qiu Ling are the core business (technology) backbones of its subsidiary InBev Digital.
At that time, the above-mentioned personnel were all included in the stock incentive objects, Zhou Weiwei was granted 1 million restricted shares, and the total number of restricted shares granted to 9 core business (technology) backbones of InBev Digital Technology was 3.2 million shares.
However, just two months later, Hongbo shares urgently terminated the incentive. The company said in the relevant announcement that it decided to terminate the incentive plan due to multiple factors such as changes in the macro environment and increased uncertainty in global development.
Disclaimer: The content and data of the article are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investors act accordingly at their own risk.
Editor|Sun Zhicheng Du Hengfeng
Proofreading|Zhao Qing
Cover image from Visual China (unrelated to the picture and text)
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