On the evening of April 26, Anjing Food, a leading domestic quick-frozen food company, (603345. SH) released its 2023 annual report, and the company achieved revenue of about 14.045 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.29%; The net profit attributable to the parent company was about 1.478 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.24%.
Anjing Foods was listed on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange in February 2017. After listing, it actively laid out the prefabricated vegetable track and stepped on the wind outlet to become the "darling" of capital. In February 2021, the share price of Anjing Food exceeded 278 yuan per share, an increase of more than 24 times from the issue price.
Red Star Capital Bureau noticed that since then, the overall performance of Anjing Foods has remained bright, but the stock price has fallen sharply, showing a downward performance and a downward stock price.
From the perspective of the secondary market, the share price of Anjing Food hit a record low in the past four years on February 5 this year, at 68.57 yuan per share. As of the close of trading on May 8, the company's share price was 96.02 yuan per share, with a total market value of 28.162 billion yuan. Compared with the peak, the market value has shrunk by more than 6%.
Data map according to Visual China
(a)
Prefabricated dishes dragged down the overall gross margin
According to the company's official website, Anjing Food was established in December 2001, formerly known as Xiamen Huashun Minsheng Food Co., Ltd.
At the beginning of its establishment, Anjing Foods mainly sold rice and noodle products, but since then it has adjusted its strategic focus and began to switch to the field of hot pot ingredients, and has achieved rapid expansion of the enterprise.
After its successful listing in 2017, Yasui Foods began to lay out the prefabricated food track, and in 2018, it put forward the business strategy of "combining three swords and making efforts in catering" to focus on the prefabricated food business.
From the perspective of business composition, Anjing Food currently has three major business segments, namely quick-frozen hot pot ingredients, quick-frozen noodles and rice products and quick-frozen prefabricated dishes.
In recent years, the overall performance of Anjing Food has been good, with the total annual revenue increasing from 1.786 billion yuan in 2013 to 14.045 billion yuan in 2023, with a compound growth rate of 22.9%; Net profit increased from 104 million yuan in 2013 to 1.478 billion yuan in 2023, with a compound growth rate of 30.4%.
In terms of products, quick-frozen surimi products account for the largest proportion of revenue, with a revenue of about 4.409 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 11.76%, accounting for 31.4% of the total revenue, and the gross profit margin of this part of the product is also the highest, at 28.89%.
The revenue scale of quick-frozen dish products (i.e., prefabricated dishes) ranks second, with a revenue of about 3.927 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 29.84%, accounting for 28% of the turnover, but the gross profit margin of this part of the product is low, at 11.65%, which drags down the overall gross profit margin of the enterprise.
In addition, the revenue of quick-frozen flour and rice products and quick-frozen meat products was comparable, with 2.545 billion yuan and 2.627 billion yuan respectively, contributing about 18% to the total revenue.
Source: Corporate financial reports
From the perspective of sales model, the financial report shows that the revenue contribution from dealer channels will account for an absolute proportion in 2023, with a total revenue of 11.369 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.96%, accounting for eighty percent of the total revenue. In terms of special direct sales, new retail, e-commerce and other channels, the performance of Yasui Food is relatively weak.
Source: Corporate financial reports
In fact, over-reliance on the distributor model may also bring some potential risks to Yasui Foods.
On the one hand, if there are problems in the operation of distributors, such as broken capital chain and poor management, it may have a greater impact on the sales and market share of Yasui Foods.
On the other hand, over-reliance on distributors may also lead to a company's reduced sensitivity to the market, making it difficult to capture market changes and changes in consumer demand in a timely manner, thus affecting the company's competitiveness and market position.
In general, although the overall performance of Yasui Foods in recent years has been good, how to improve product profitability and how to expand multiple channels is still a problem in front of Anjing Food.
(b)
A variety of means to raise 7.6 billion yuan from the market
The actual controller and senior executives continue to reduce their holdings and cash out
Returning to the performance of Anjing Food in the secondary market, the reason for the sharp decline may be related to the frequent "operation" of the enterprise.
In January this year, Anjing Foods announced that it planned to issue shares (H shares) in Hong Kong and list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, one of the purposes of which was to "enhance the company's overseas financing capabilities".
On the first trading day after the announcement (January 22), the company's stock price fell directly to the limit, falling by 10%. In the following trading days, its stock price continued to fall, and by January 30, the stock price fell by 21.65% on the 7th.
The reason why the secondary market reacted so "violently" was because Yasui Foods itself was not short of money.
According to the financial report, as of the end of 2023, Anjing Food's monetary funds and transactional financial assets were 4.975 billion yuan and 1.033 billion yuan respectively, with a total of about 6.008 billion yuan, and the total current assets reached 10.426 billion yuan, current liabilities were 4.006 billion yuan, and the asset-liability ratio was 38.42%.
Source: Corporate financial reports
In addition, since its listing, Yasui Foods has frequently raised funds from the capital market. From 2017 to 2022, Anjing Food has raised a total of about 7.676 billion yuan through IPO fundraising, issuance of convertible bonds (2 times), private placement and other means.
In recent years, the founders, executives and controlling shareholders of Anjing Foods have also continued to reduce their holdings and cash out, which has also caused market controversy.
In 2020, after the expiration of the ban period, Liu Mingming, founder and chairman of Anjing Food, announced a shareholding reduction plan and cashed out a total of 217 million yuan. Huang Jianlian, deputy general manager of the company, also cashed out more than 90 million yuan by reducing his holdings in the same year.
Since then, Zhang Qingmiao, director and general manager of Anjing Food, Liang Chen, secretary of the board of directors, Tang Yi, chief financial officer, Huang Qingsong, deputy general manager, and others have successively reduced their holdings of the company's shares many times, and the reasons for reducing their holdings are "personal capital needs".
In addition to the founders and corporate executives, from 2022 to 2023, Guoli Minsheng, the controlling shareholder of Anjing Foods, has made two large-scale reductions in just one year. the amount of the first reduction was 690 million yuan, with a reduction ratio of 1.77%; The proportion of the second reduction was significantly increased to 5%, and the amount of the reduction was as high as 2.27 billion yuan. The two reductions totaled nearly 3 billion yuan.
From an investor's point of view, the above "operation" of Yasui Foods may cause concern and make investors doubt the company's future development, which will affect the company's stock price and market performance.
(c)
The AB side of the prefabricated vegetable track
For Yasui Food, the layout of the prefabricated food business is based on market opportunities, optimization of product structure, strategic transformation and improvement of profitability.
In the past two or three years, Anjing Food has also increased its investment in the prefabricated food track and engaged in the production base of prefabricated dishes.
According to the research report of Donghai Securities, at present, Anjing Food has formed a diversified development model of self-production (Yasui Kitchen) + OEM (Mr. Yasui, Frozen Products) + mergers and acquisitions (Xinhongye, Xinliuwu).
Source: official website of the company
However, despite the popularity of the concept of pre-made dishes in the market, the controversy over pre-made dishes has been incessant since last year.
For example, some consumers are worried about health problems, believing that a large number of preservatives and additives may be added to pre-made dishes, and these chemicals may have a negative impact on human health; There are also consumers who think that pre-made dishes are not delicious because they need to be packaged and stored after processing, which may lead to a decrease in the freshness and taste of the ingredients.
In the face of market doubts, Yasui Foods is also actively defending pre-made dishes. The company mentioned in the financial report that it is unreasonable to expand and demonize prefabricated dishes and kill them with a stick.
Judging from the performance, the growth rate of the prefabricated food business segment of Anjing Food has indeed declined.
According to the financial report, in 2023, the company's revenue from quick-frozen dish products will reach 3.927 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.84%. According to the previous data, the operating income of the company's quick-frozen dish business from 2020 to 2022 will be 673 million yuan, 1.429 billion yuan, and 3.024 billion yuan respectively, and the corresponding growth rates will be 23.26%, 112.41%, and 111.61% respectively.
From the perspective of industry competition, due to the relatively low entry threshold of the prefabricated food industry, there are many enterprises in the industry, including traditional quick-frozen food companies such as Qianwei Central Kitchen, Sanquan Foods, etc., catering brands such as Quanjude, Xibei, etc., fresh e-commerce platforms Hema, Jingdong Supermarket, Dingdong Food, etc., which shows that the competition in the prefabricated food track is very fierce.
For Yasui Food, fierce market competition, difficult product innovation, and difficult channel layout are still the layers of barriers that enterprises need to break through in the field of prefabricated dishes.
Red Star News reporter Liu Mi
Edited by Yu Dongmei
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