Black Sesame's New Energy "Menghao"

Zebra consumption Fan Jian

A dream about new energy, black sesame has been doing it for 7 years.

In 2017, the company participated in the construction of new energy projects in a joint venture with a third party, during which a lot of resources and funds were invested, but it never came to fruition.

Last year, the company planned to go down in person and invest heavily in the layout of new energy. The announcement was very lively, and the plan was well formulated. As a result, the thunder was heavy and the rain was small, and the external environment changed, and the construction of the project was suspended.

Every time the news of chasing new energy comes out, the share price of black sesame will usher in a wave of rise. As soon as the excitement passed, it was cut to the ankle.

Chasing dreams for 7 years to no avail

Black Sesame Dream New Energy began in 2017.

At that time, in order to further expand its business operations, optimize its industrial structure, cultivate new economic growth points and improve its profitability, the company once again chose cross-border investment.

Together with Shenzhen Tesson, Dalian Zhiyun, etc., jointly invested 1 billion yuan to establish Tesson New Energy. Among them, the company invested 300 million yuan and held 30% of the shares. According to the plan at that time, after the completion of the first phase of the project, it will form an annual output of 3GWh power battery system and an annual output of 2GWh battery cell production scale.

The implementation process of the project has been full of twists and turns. During the period, due to the change of industrial policy, which led to the uncertainty of the industry prospects, Tesson New Energy temporarily slowed down the construction of its production base and reduced its registered capital to 300 million yuan in 2021.

However, it didn't take long for the industry environment to change again. In order to strive for local support policies, Tesson New Energy decided to increase its capital in 2022.

Black Sesame is extremely optimistic about the market prospects of the new energy industry, and decided to take this opportunity to increase investment in Tesson New Energy. It is planned to use the 100% equity of Jiangxi Xiaohei Xiaomi as the price, and the insufficient part will be made up with its own funds, with a total capital increase of 500 million yuan in Tesson New Energy. After the completion of the capital increase, the company holds 59.09% of the equity of Tesson New Energy, which will be included in the scope of consolidated statements.

At that time, the two bases of Tesson New Energy in Nanjing and Nanchang were planned and constructed at the same time, with an estimated investment of 4.5 billion yuan and 3.5 billion yuan respectively, and the first phase of the project was expected to be completed and put into operation in June and August 2023.

Only a few months later, due to changes in local support and preferential policies, the capital increase was terminated.

Seven years have passed, and the new energy dream of black sesame is still a bubble. The construction of Tesson's new energy project seems to be far away, and the company has been unable to generate revenue for a long time.

Not only that, Tesson New Energy has been involved in a large number of lawsuits, and has been frequently sued by partners in court due to contract disputes. In the past three years, the company and its legal representative, Tian Gang, have been restricted more than ten times.

Even so, black sesame has not been able to wake up completely from the dream of new energy.

Grand plans are on hold

Since the progress of the cooperation project is slow, it is necessary to take the lead yourself and fully grasp the initiative.

On April 1, 2023, on the same day that it decided to terminate the capital increase of Tesson New Energy, Black Sesame announced in a high-profile manner that it would personally go down to do new energy.

The specific implementation measures are to transform the business of Jiangxi Xiaohei Xiaomi Food Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary, into the production and operation of energy storage lithium batteries, and invest in the construction of energy storage battery production bases. The company is the asset that was previously intended to be used to increase the capital of Tesson New Energy.

Jiangxi Xiaohei Xiaomi was originally an important food production base of black sesame. In 2021, the company relocated the production line here to other bases, and assets such as land and factories were idle. After demonstration, these idle assets are suitable for transformation into energy storage lithium battery production base.

In addition, Jiangxi Province will take new energy as a key development industry, and the location of Jiangxi Xiaohei Xiaomi will support the company's transformation, and will provide preferential policies in key project declaration, power supply, technological transformation subsidies, loan interest discounts, taxes, etc.

According to the company's plan, the total investment of the project is about 3.5 billion yuan, which will be constructed in two phases, and will reach normal production in January and October 2025 respectively. EVENTUALLY, THREE PRISMATIC LITHIUM IRON PHOSPHATE BATTERY PRODUCTION LINES WILL BE BUILT TO FORM A PRODUCTION CAPACITY OF ENERGY STORAGE BATTERIES WITH AN ANNUAL OUTPUT OF 8.9GWH. The annual operating income was 6 billion yuan and the net profit was 360 million yuan.

At that time, the monetary funds in the hands of listed companies were only one or two hundred million, and there was a huge funding gap, which needed to be raised externally.

Despite all the difficulties, this exciting plan was almost unanimously approved by the shareholders' meeting on May 5, 2023.

Unexpectedly, from the second half of 2023, the new energy battery market will suddenly change, and the prices of equipment, raw materials, products, etc. will fall off a cliff, and the reality and expectations will change significantly.

At the annual performance briefing held not long ago, the company made it clear that the construction of the above projects has been suspended. In 2023, more than 2 million yuan has been invested in the preliminary preparation of the project.

There is not enough space for sesame paste

"Black ~ sesame paste ~~" The picture of a mother carrying a burden, taking her children, and walking the streets to sell black sesame paste is the childhood memory of countless post-70s and post-80s.

The black sesame paste of black sesame has been sold for 40 years, and the company is a leading enterprise in the subdivision of domestic paste food. Although it has a long history, large brand awareness and market share, the market capacity is limited, resulting in insufficient growth space for the traditional business of black sesame, and the company's market attention is not high.

As a result, the company has been exploring on the road of cross-border transformation. It has successively set foot in agriculture, logistics and other related industries, but has failed to achieve substantial results.

In 2017, the company acquired 100% of the shares of Liduoduo, a company on the New Third Board, at a consideration of 700 million yuan, and stepped into the e-commerce industry.

With the consolidation of Liduoduo, it has indeed boosted the performance of listed companies in the short term. From 2017 to 2019, Liduoduo achieved net profits of 64.1637 million yuan, 80.1702 million yuan, and 75.3667 million yuan respectively, stepping on the line to complete the performance commitment.

However, just after the performance commitment period, Liduoduo's performance changed face in an instant, until it lost money. From 2020 to 2023, the net profit will be 41.5271 million yuan, 31.3285 million yuan, -188.1843 million yuan and -10.5488 million yuan respectively, which will directly lead to continuous losses of more than 100 million yuan in 2021 and 2022.

In 2023, Black Sesame's operating income will decline by 11.25% year-on-year to 2.677 billion yuan, mainly due to the decline of 353 million yuan in the revenue of Liduoduo's e-commerce business. The company said that this is the result of optimizing the e-commerce agency operation business and compressing the business with low gross profit margin or large capital occupation.

Although the company's traditional food business has remained basically stable, it has always been difficult to make a big improvement.

Holding an e-commerce operating company, the channel of black sesame is very traditional, and the traditional offline distribution model has always been the core of the company's food business. In 2023, the company's traditional dealers will increase by 224 to 2,256 by the end of the year, while the number of e-commerce dealers will decrease from 24 in the previous year to 16. In the current period, the online direct sales revenue of the Southern Black Sesame brand decreased from 155 million yuan in the previous year to 140 million yuan.

At the annual results meeting, some investors directly pointed out that "the company has been in e-commerce for many years and should have rich experience, but there are always few viewers in the Douyin live broadcast room", hoping that the company will improve its ability to bring goods through live broadcasting.

Of course, investors are more concerned about the company's frequent high-profile entry into new energy to stimulate the stock price in the short term, but due to the lack of business support, it was quickly beaten back to its original shape.

From the end of 2022 to the beginning of 2023, black sesame was glued to the concept of new energy, and the stock price soared to a high of 11.25 yuan in an instant, and now, it has fallen to 4.61 yuan (closed on May 20).