The 2023 annual report of the Shanghai Stock Exchange Main Board Collective Performance Briefing was held on April 24, and five listed companies, including Baotou Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., Northern Rare Earth, Guangsheng Nonferrous Metals, Jinshi Resources and Quartz Co., Ltd., appeared on the Shanghai Stock Exchange to explain their performance, discuss the development trend of the industry, and tap the endogenous power of the industry.
Survive the cycle
Despite the changing industry cycles, many listed companies have cultivated a way of sound operation. The five companies unveiled at the performance briefing are all leaders in traditional industries, and from the 2023 financial report, the performance of the five companies has achieved stable development.
In 2023, Quartz Co., Ltd. will achieve operating income of 7.184 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 258.48%, and a net profit of 5.022 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 404.85%. The company's net operating cash flow was 3.844 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 693.06%.
According to reports, Quartz actively seizes the opportunity period of the in-depth development of the photovoltaic industry and the accelerated development of the semiconductor industry, focuses on promoting the capacity construction and technical reserves of the photovoltaic and semiconductor quartz materials business segment, and continuously expands the competitive advantage of high-purity quartz sand and quartz products in the high-end market. The rapid development of the photovoltaic industry has promoted the explosive growth of the company's operating performance, and various business indicators have achieved historic breakthroughs.
Rising Nonferrous Metals is the only legal mining enterprise of rare earth resources in Guangdong Province, and is also a state-level rare earth group, the company insists on continuously enhancing the ability to control rare earth resources, implementing the transformation and upgrading of smelting and separation enterprises, and laying out downstream application industries to steadily enhance the comprehensive strength of the industry.
In 2023, the company achieved a total self-produced ore volume of 2,458 tons, a year-on-year increase of 61%, a total ore investment of 8,211 tons, a year-on-year increase of 28%, a revenue of 20.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 9.01%, and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 203 million yuan.
Ke Changbo, secretary of the board of directors of Rising Nonferrous Metals, said that the company horizontally focuses on the rare earth industry, simultaneously expands the development and application of strategic rare metal resources such as tungsten and copper, accelerates the increase of reserves and production, and vertically gives full play to its upstream rare earth resource advantages and the geographical advantages of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, extends the industrial chain of rare earth deep processing and application, promotes the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries, accelerates the construction of a modern industrial chain, serves the development of the Greater Bay Area, and builds the company into a flagship enterprise in the development and application of strategic resources such as rare earths.
Baotou Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. has 670 million tons of iron ore reserves in Baiyun Oboxi Mine, with an average rare earth grade of 1.07%. Thanks to the resource advantages of the symbiosis of iron and rare earth, Baotou Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. has formed the product characteristics of "rare earth steel".
In 2023, Baotou Steel Co., Ltd. will achieve operating income of 70.565 billion yuan and net profit attributable to the parent company of 515 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 170.94%.
North Rare Earth achieved operating income of 33.497 billion yuan last year, net profit attributable to the parent company of 2.371 billion yuan, and non-net profit of 2.318 billion yuan. According to reports, the company will continue to strengthen the leading edge of rare earth resources, adhere to the expansion and refinement of the rare earth raw materials industry, expand the supply capacity of rare earth functional materials, optimize and strengthen the magnetic, polishing, hydrogen storage, catalysis, alloy and other rare earth functional materials industries, and strive to extend the industrial chain, specializing in the special rare earth terminal application industry.
Located in Hangzhou, Jinshi Resources is an industrial group specializing in the investment and development of fluorite mines and the production and sales of fluorite products. In recent years, the company has adhered to the two-wing driving strategy of "resources + technology" and the business model of "leveraging asset-heavy resources with asset-light technology", and at the same time deepened its global layout, and has been tracking major overseas fluorite resource countries including Mongolia, South Africa and South America for a long time. For the R&D strategy, Goldstone Resources insists on promoting the healthy growth of the business through the ability of technical reserves, the ability of rapid industrialization and the ability of project incubation.
According to the data, in 2023, Jinshi Resources will achieve an operating income of 1.896 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 80.54%, and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 349 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 56.89%.
Traditional Industries "Gorgeous Turn"
At this performance briefing, this reporter found that the five listed companies present are all committed to deepening scientific and technological innovation and broadening downstream applications, providing an excellent demonstration for the "gorgeous turnaround" of traditional industries.
Liang Zhigang, general manager of Baotou Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., said that the company put forward the product structure adjustment direction of "high-quality fine steel + series rare earth steel", through continuous increase in R&D investment and joint efforts of scientific research institutes, to build differentiated competitive advantages, relying on the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Rare Earth Steel Product R&D Key Laboratory, and constantly explore rare earths to improve the wear resistance, corrosion resistance, Remarkable results have been achieved in the unique role of low-temperature impact performance, forming more than 60 rare earth steel products, involving more than 200 steel grades, and rare earth steel exceeded 1.2 million tons for the first time last year.
Liang Zhigang said that the main research and development direction in the future is to give full play to the special role of rare earth in steel, facing the key areas of national economic construction, the development of new energy construction, transportation, oil and gas transportation, construction machinery and other fields with high-performance rare earth steel, such as photovoltaic bracket with rare earth weathering steel, rare earth non-oriented silicon steel, rare earth wear-resistant and corrosion-resistant rails, high corrosion-resistant rare earth bridge steel and other products, to further promote the "high-end, serialization and standardization" of rare earth steel products.
Dai Shuijun, secretary of the board of directors of Goldstone Resources, said that the R&D strategy is the core of the company's transformation led by new quality productivity, including three parts: technical reserve ability, industrialization ability and project incubation ability. Last year, the company set up six research institutes of fluorite resources, lithium resources, pharmaceuticals and rare metals, which can quickly industrialize the laboratory results and create "gold-stone speed".
"In addition, we also pay attention to projects that are highly synergistic with the main business and have a broad market space, and serve as our technology incubation projects. For example, Hunan Jinshi Intelligent Manufacturing is solving the pain points of the civil explosive industry. The three major systems of growth model, global layout, and R&D strategy constitute the logic of growth and meet the requirements of new quality productivity. Dai Shuijun said.
Quartz Co., Ltd. is one of the three companies in the world and the only one in China that has mastered the technology of large-scale mass production of high-purity quartz sand. According to reports, after more than 30 years of innovation and development, the company has mastered the processing and production technology of various types of natural quartz, and has a number of independent research and development, the world's leading continuous melting, electric melting, gas refining, secondary molding and other production technologies, especially the continuous melting production technology has always led the technological progress of the industry.
Quartz Co., Ltd.'s continuous melting series of quartz products have been certified by internationally renowned semiconductor manufacturers, and its technical level is internationally leading, and it is the only company in China that has obtained the certification of Tokyo Electron for quartz materials in the field of semiconductor diffusion.
Real money rewards investors
The new "National Nine Articles" announced a few days ago emphasize more effective protection of the legitimate rights and interests of investors, especially small and medium-sized investors, and put the strengthening of the supervision of cash dividends of listed companies in a prominent position. The reporter noticed that the five listed companies that appeared in the performance briefing all showed the characteristics of high dividends and heavy returns.
Song Ling, financial director of Northern Rare Earth, said: "The company attaches great importance to rewarding shareholders, and has paid a total of 5.166 billion yuan in dividends since its listing. From 2011 to 2022, the dividend ratio exceeded 30% every year. ”
Northern Rare Earth plans to pay a dividend of 253 million yuan in 2023, with a dividend ratio of less than 30%, mainly due to the retained undistributed profits used for the construction of green smelting and upgrading projects, which are expected to have good economic benefits after the project is completed and put into operation, which is conducive to improving the company's operating performance and overall market value, and bringing long-term returns to shareholders.
Quartz shares will receive a cash dividend of 70 yuan (tax included) for every 10 shares in 2023, and at the same time, it is planned to increase the share capital by 5 shares for every 10 shares, with a total of 181 million shares expected to be converted into a total of 181 million shares, and the cash dividend in 2023 is expected to reach 2.526 billion yuan. Since its listing in 2014, quartz has accumulated cash dividends of 3.16 billion yuan, with an average annual dividend ratio of 44.34%.
Since its listing in 2017, Goldstone Resources has been focusing on investor returns.
According to the data, the cash dividend ratio of Goldstone Resources over the years has exceeded 30%, of which the company has carried out two repurchases in 2020 and 2022, and after including the repurchase amount, the cash dividend ratio of the two years reached 73.9% and 73.1% respectively. According to the latest company's 2023 dividend plan, the cash dividend ratio has been increased to 51.75%.