Bethany's performance in the first three quarters continued to increase by 65% Holding 2.5 billion yuan in cash accounted for nearly half of total assets

Yangtze River Business Daily news ● Yangtze River Business Daily reporter Cai Jia

Bethany (300957, a leading domestic skin care products company. SZ) to hand over the eye-catching performance answer sheet.

In the first three quarters of this year, Bethany achieved operating income of 2.113 billion yuan, an increase of 49.05% year-on-year; net profit of 355 million yuan, an increase of 65.03% year-on-year. Previously, from 2018 to 2020, the company's net profit growth rate was above 30%.

During the reporting period, bethanie's expense ratio during the period was 52.69%, down 2.45 percentage points year-on-year, expanding profit margins.

As the fourth quarter is the peak season of the cosmetics industry, Bethany, which has achieved outstanding sales performance in the recent "Double 11" event, has been placed high hopes by many institutions for its annual report card.

It is worth noting that Bethany announced the termination of the five-month IPO plan to Hong Kong. In June this year, Bethany, which has been on the A-share market for less than three months, launched an IPO plan to hong Kong, seeking to list in both A+H places.

However, despite the termination of the listing in Hong Kong, from the current point of view, Bethany, who has recently completed the A-share IPO, is not "bad money". In March this year, Bethany raised a total of 3.01 billion yuan in its initial public offering of new shares. As of the end of September, the company's monetary funds reached 2.452 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 50% of the total assets.

Performance growth rate of more than 60% in the past two quarters

Bethany, which has been listed for more than half a year, continues to maintain a high operating performance.

In the first three quarters of this year, Bethany achieved operating income of 2.113 billion yuan, an increase of 49.05% year-on-year; net profit of 355 million yuan, an increase of 65.03% year-on-year.

The reporter of Changjiang Business Daily noted that benefiting from the continuous improvement of product and brand awareness, Bethany's operating performance has shown a rapid growth trend in recent years.

According to the data, Bethany focuses on the use of pure natural plant active ingredients to provide gentle, professional skin care products, and its core brand "Winona" has been rated as "The 1st Place in the Sensitive Skin Care Category" many times.

From 2018 to 2020, Bethanie achieved operating income of 1.24 billion yuan, 1.944 billion yuan and 2.636 billion yuan respectively, an increase of 55.44%, 56.69% and 35.64% year-on-year, and a net profit of 260 million yuan, 412 million yuan and 544 million yuan, an increase of 60.58%, 58.12% and 31.94% year-on-year. Among them, the company's net profit last year exceeded twice that of the whole year of 2018, and the performance of the first three quarters of this year has completed 65.26% of the whole year of last year.

Due to the main online sales, affected by activities such as "Double 11 and Double 12", Bethany's performance is mainly concentrated in the second half of the year. In the third and fourth quarters of last year, the company achieved a net profit of 55 million yuan and 328 million yuan respectively, accounting for 10.11% and 60.3% of the annual net profit.

In the three quarters of this year, Bethany achieved operating income of 507 million yuan, 904 million yuan and 701 million yuan respectively, an increase of 59.32%, 45.14% and 47.29% year-on-year; net profit of 0.79 billion yuan, 186 million yuan and 0.9 billion yuan, an increase of 45.83, 75.13% and 64.29% year-on-year, and the performance growth rate continued to remain at a high level.

Therefore, Bethany's performance in the fourth quarter has also been placed high hopes by many institutions. Debon Securities pointed out that this year's double 11 "Winona" pre-sale achieved 700 million GMV on the first day, surpassing the full period of last year's double 11, laying a good guarantee for the revenue and performance of the fourth quarter of this year; in addition, 2018-2020 Winona double eleven ranked 9th and 10th, and as of October 25, the pre-sale of skin care categories ranked fifth, domestic goods first, and the ranking performance was equally eye-catching. Considering that the fourth quarter is the peak season of the cosmetics industry, the company has taken the lead by virtue of product strength and channel strength, and the high increase in sales will effectively dilute the period expenses, and it is expected to achieve high net profit margins in the fourth quarter.

In addition, the Yangtze River Business Daily reporter combed and found that as a cosmetics company, Bethany continued to increase the profit margin by strictly controlling the cost of expenditure. In the first half of this year, Bethany's gross profit margin was 76.9%, an increase of 0.07 percentage points year-on-year. During the reporting period, the company's total expense ratio for the period was 52.69%, down 2.45 percentage points year-on-year.

Specifically, in the first three quarters, the company's sales expenses were 978 million yuan, an increase of 46.83% year-on-year, and the sales expense ratio was 46.28%, down 0.7 percentage points year-on-year. However, compared with the sales expenses, Bethany's research and development expenses are not high, although the year-on-year increase of 44.48% to 68.4815 million yuan, but the proportion of revenue is only about 3.2%.

Or terminate the H-share IPO plan due to the valuation of Hong Kong stock financing

At the same time as the release of the transcript, Bethanie disclosed the latest progress of listing in Hong Kong, in view of the current changes in the capital market environment and comprehensive consideration of the company's actual situation, financing environment and other factors, the company will terminate the IPO plan in Hong Kong.

The Reporter of Changjiang Business Daily noted that in June this year, Bethany, which has been on the A-share market for less than three months, announced its intention to go public in Hong Kong for the first time. At that time, the company said that the listing in Hong Kong was mainly to further improve the company's capital strength and comprehensive competitiveness, according to the company's development strategy and operational needs.

Within the next two months, Bethanie submitted an application to the SFC for an H-share IPO and listing on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and received a feedback notice from the SFC.

After four months, why did you suddenly announce the termination of your IPO in Hong Kong? In this regard, Debon Securities analyzed that betty's termination of the H-share offering was mainly or the overall valuation of the current Hong Kong stock financing did not match the high prosperity of the listed company's main business, so it was proposed to terminate the H-share listing plan.

The reporter of Changjiang Business Daily further combed and found that Bethany, who had just completed the A-share IPO, was currently well-funded. In March this year, Bethany publicly issued 63.6 million new shares at a price of 47.33 yuan per share, raising a total of 3.01 billion yuan, and the net amount of funds raised after deducting the issuance fee was 2.884 billion yuan.

As of the end of June this year, Bethany had used a total of 789 million yuan of raised funds, and the unused balance of raised funds was 2.103 billion yuan, of which 1.52 billion yuan was purchased for wealth management products.

The third quarterly report disclosed that as of the end of September, Bethany's total assets were 4.965 billion yuan, an increase of 209.96% compared with 1.602 billion yuan at the beginning of the year, mainly from the arrival of IPO fundraising. The monetary funds at the end of the period were 2.452 billion yuan, an increase of 226.15% over the beginning of the year, accounting for nearly 50% of the total assets.

The company's total liabilities at the end of the period were only 705 million yuan, and the asset-liability ratio was 14.19%. Among its interest-bearing liabilities, there are only non-current liabilities due within one year of 0.45 billion yuan, and long-term and short-term borrowings are 0.

In addition, during the reporting period, due to the arrival of IPO fundraising, the company's cash inflow from financing activities was 2.915 billion yuan, an increase of 7795.83% year-on-year. Due to the increase in interest income on bank deposits, the company's financial fee was -8.3431 million yuan. Due to the rapid growth of sales scale, Bethany's net operating cash flow was 348 million yuan, an increase of 499.88% year-on-year.

However, it should be noted that Bethanie, with "Winona" as the core, has always had the risk of relatively concentrated brand. Bethany disclosed that from 2017 to 2020, the sales revenue achieved by the "Winona" brand accounted for more than 99% of the main business income, and in the first half of this year, this proportion was still as high as 98.72%.

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Editor-in-charge: ZB

This article originated from the Yangtze River Business Daily