Text/Du Yilan
"I don't know where it is, but it is very good to watch" "I want to send a head to Teacher Mao Geping" In 2019, The video of Mao Geping helping the Internet celebrity "Late Night Teacher Xu" change his makeup was fired on major social platforms. With plastic surgery-grade makeup technology, Mao Geping became popular again on the Internet. At the same time, the cosmetics company of the same name, Mao Geping Cosmetics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Mao Geping Shares"), which he founded, recently knocked on the door of the capital market, and the application for a first-share initial offering was approved by the CSRC.
According to the prospectus, Mao Geping intends to raise 512 million yuan for the construction of pipelines, research and development centers and other projects. However, behind this, Mao Geping shares are deeply bound to Mao Geping, and more than 70% of the company's operating income comes from Mao Geping's eponymous brand "mgpin". Mao Geping's products are positioned as high-end makeup and skin care products, but the proportion of R&D investment in revenue is only about 1%, which is a gap with international brands such as L'Oréal and Shiseido.
With the funds raised about to be in place, can The "big brother of domestic products" Mao Geping shares tell a new story?
In the 1990s, the TV series "Wu Zetian" starring Liu Xiaoqing was popular all over the country, and Mao Geping, who gave Liu Xiaoqing makeup, also took advantage of this "one hit and became popular" and became a well-known makeup artist.
With the blessing of personal influence, Mao Geping entered the business field, and in 2000 founded the beauty brand of the same name "mgpin", as well as the "Mao Geping Image Design Art School" specializing in makeup training. In 2008, Mao Geping founded the Volkswagen brand Beloved For Life.
With the growing scale, Mao Geping submitted a prospectus for the first time in 2016 and broke into the Shanghai Stock Exchange. At that time, the prospectus showed that the company had mgpin, the love of life two major makeup brands and Mao Geping image training school, as of the end of June 2016, Mao Geping image in Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and other seven places set up training schools, engaged in makeup training business. However, the breakthrough was not successful.
In September 2017, Mao Geping shares submitted the prospectus again, still launched an impact on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, after four years, Mao Geping shares and other feedback, in October 21, 2021, the issuance and review committee work meeting, Mao Geping shares listing application was approved. It is worth mentioning that the prospectus of Mao Geping shares has not been updated since September 2017. In this regard, China News Weekly has repeatedly called the secretary office of the board of directors of Mao Geping Shares, but as of press time, no one has answered.
The Securities Law stipulates that the financial accounting report of a company's initial public offering of new shares should be issued with an unqualified opinion audit report. Kong Lei, a lawyer at Beijing T&O Law Firm, told China News Weekly that the financial statements of an enterprise entering the audit period do not need to be disclosed to the outside world, but the financial data must be updated every year and reported internally to the CSRC.
Although Mao Geping's shares passed the meeting smoothly, the company still faces challenges such as "dependence" on Mao Geping's personal IP, low investment in research and development, and core competitiveness to be improved.
As the founder of Mao Geping Shares, Mao Geping is the core figure of the company. According to the latest prospectus disclosed by Mao Geping, Mao Geping and Wang Liqun hold a total of 55.45% of the company's shares, are the controlling shareholders and actual controllers of the company, and have absolute right to speak.
At the same time, Mao Geping is the performance pillar of Mao Geping shares, which can be called the company's "living signboard". According to the prospectus, from 2015 to June 2017, the operating income of Mao Geping shares was 321 million yuan, 343 million yuan and 201 million yuan, and the net profit was 54.6247 million yuan, 53.3195 million yuan and 35.6042 million yuan, respectively.
During the same period, the operating income of Mao Geping's eponymous brand "mgpin" was 214 million yuan, 247 million yuan and 142 million yuan respectively, accounting for 66.67%, 72.01% and 70.65% of the total operating income, respectively. The lifetime operating income of another cosmetics brand under Mao Geping Co., Ltd. was 50.6355 million yuan, 37.1547 million yuan and 22.0739 million yuan, accounting for only 10%-15% of the operating income of the current period.
"The company's core brand mgpin is named after Mao Geping, and if Mao Geping's personal misconduct, it may also infringe on the company's brand image, thus adversely affecting the company's normal operations." Mao Geping shares the prospectus shows.
According to the prospectus disclosed by Mao Geping shares in 2017, Mao Geping shares have a certain dependence on Mao Geping's personal reputation, and Mao Geping shares can weaken Mao Geping's personal impact on the company through research and development and the layout of diversified product lines.
Wu Daiqi, CEO of Shenzhen Siqisheng Company, told China News Weekly that the influence and reputation established by Mao Geping in the field of makeup professionals are a strong support behind the "mgpin" brand, but the possible problem is that the degree of attention to research and development is not enough, "Its technical ability in production and research and development is relatively weak, and it pays more attention to consumer-facing experience and image shaping." ”
In recent years, Mao Geping has become popular again by helping celebrities and Internet celebrities make up, opening social accounts, etc., which has led to the exposure of the same name cosmetics among young people. In May last year, Mao Geping entered the b station of the young people's trend culture community platform, and in the past year, he has accumulated more than 800,000 fans.
"Brand awareness is an important guarantee for enterprises to win the market and obtain consumer groups." Mao Geping's prospectus shows that in the cosmetics industry, high brand awareness can bring strong bargaining power to enterprises, and then obtain greater profit space.
In fact, compared with internationally renowned high-end brands, there is still a big gap in the brand awareness of Mao Geping shares, but its gross profit margin level is higher than that of L'Oréal, Shiseido and other listed companies in the same industry.
According to the prospectus, the gross profit margin of Mao Geping from 2014 to 2016 was 81.5%, 79.7% and 78.22%, respectively, and the average gross profit margin of L'Oréal, Shiseido, Shanghai Jahwa, L'Occitane and Natural Beauty was 73.27%, 73.17% and 73.2% respectively, all lower than that of Mao Geping. However, compared with L'Oréal and other enterprises, Mao Geping's R&D investment is low.
Source: Guan Yan Tianxia
It is understood that the products of Mao Geping co., Ltd. are mainly high-end makeup and skin care products, and the average price range is 400-700 yuan. As of June 2017, the total number of employees in the company is 1321, including 15 R&D personnel. From 2014 to 2016, the R&D expenses of Mao Geping co., Ltd. were 2.4469 million yuan, 3.0511 million yuan and 3.4227 million yuan, respectively, and the R&D expense rate was about 1%.
According to the Guanyan Tianxia report, the R&D expense ratio of L'Oréal, Shiseido, Shanghai Jahwa and other enterprises in the same period was 1.5%-3.5%, which was higher than that of Mao Geping.
The above issues have aroused the attention of the CSRC, after which the Issuance and Review Committee asked Mao Geping to explain, "In the case of the company's research and development capabilities and brand awareness are not as good as those of first-line brands, the reasons and rationality of the gross profit margin are higher than those of first-line brands, and whether there are major uncertainties in sustained profitability." ”
In addition, as a cosmetics brand that has been established for more than 20 years, Mao Geping has not built his own cosmetics production line, and all rely on commissioned processing and production. According to the prospectus, the main suppliers of Mao Geping shares include Inteli Technology (Suzhou Industrial Park) Co., Ltd., Shanghai Zhixin Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Cosmesis (China) Cosmetics Co., Ltd. and so on.
It is understood that Cosmex is a world-renowned cosmetics manufacturer, which works for international brands such as Estée Lauder and Shiseido, as well as domestic brands such as Baijiling, Nature's Hall, Huaxizi, and Perfect Diary.
The "2020 Domestic Makeup Market Research Report" pointed out that most domestic makeup brands rely on OEM production, and a foundry is simultaneously OEM for multiple brands, which is prone to problems such as serious product homogenization and low recognition, and brands cannot establish a moat.
In the case of relatively low R&D investment, what is the core competitiveness of Mao Geping's positioning of high-end makeup and skin care products? China News Weekly has written to Mao Geping shares in this regard, and as of press time, the other party has not replied.
Pan and Lin said, "Mao Geping shares have less investment in research and development, most of the products are OEM, and the gross profit margin is relatively high." ”
Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of Ai Media Consulting, analyzed China News Weekly, "Mao Geping's research and development investment is only 1%, which is lower than that of its peers, indicating that the competitiveness of its products is not strong enough." With the emergence of emerging brands in recent years and fierce competition in the cosmetics industry, whether Mao Geping shares can resist market competition needs to be tested. ”
According to iimedia research, the size of China's cosmetics market is expected to increase to 512.5 billion yuan in 2023. With the gradual enhancement of domestic consumers' awareness and consumption concept of cosmetics, the scale of the domestic cosmetics market has gradually expanded, attracting not only more and more foreign-funded enterprises such as L'Oréal, Estée Lauder, lvmh, Shiseido, etc., but also emerging local cutting-edge cosmetics brands such as Huaxizi, Perfect Diary, and Colorkey, and the market competition has become increasingly fierce.
In this context, the situation of Mao Geping, the former "big brother" of domestic goods in the beauty industry, is more embarrassing.
During this year's Double Eleven period, according to Ebang Power data, L'Oréal, Estée Lauder and Lancôme ranked in the top three in the Tmall beauty and skin care list from October 20 to 26. On October 20, within 4 hours of the opening of the double eleven pre-sale of Jingdong Beauty, Lancôme, Estée Lauder and sk-II occupied the top three brands in high-end beauty sales, and Winona, Polaria and Baijiling were the top three brands of national tide beauty.
In the above list ranking, none of The brands under Mao Geping Co., Ltd. are on the list. In the face of international big names, the influence of Mao Geping shares is slightly insufficient, and in the face of the cutting-edge national tide brand, the "momentum" of Mao Geping shares is not enough.
Compared with the tens of millions of fans in Huaxizi and Perfect Diary Tmall flagship stores, the number of fans in Mao Geping Tmall flagship stores is less than 5 million. According to the Tmall flagship store, Mao Geping's first-selling product has 90,000+ people paying, and the number of payments for Huaxizi and Perfect Diary's first-selling products exceeds 200,000.
Source: Screenshots of Tmall flagship stores of various brands
In addition, as the first "Mao Geping Image Design Art School" named after the founder in China, the operating income contributed to Mao Geping shares is limited. From 2015 to June 2017, the operating income of Mao Geping's makeup training business was 39.0731 million yuan, 42.0896 million yuan and 26.6195 million yuan, respectively, which was only about one-tenth of the total revenue.
According to the prospectus, Mao Geping intends to raise 512 million yuan for the construction of projects such as channels, research and development centers, and image design training institutions. After the funds are in place, can Mao Geping tell a new story?
Pan and Lin believe that Mao Geping shares have a certain brand reputation, brand tone is also relatively high-end, image maintenance is better, the current domestic beauty field competitors, but with high-end brand tonal beauty brands are still relatively few, with the funds raised in place, Mao Geping shares should quickly promote the construction and landing of research and development centers, improve market competitiveness.
"At present, the product homogenization of domestic cosmetics brands is more serious, and local brands still need to continue to exert efforts at the technical level, have core technologies, and create differentiated products." Wu Daiqi said.
Zhang Yi said that in the future, the high-end of domestic cosmetics brands is a development trend, and in this process, the company's research and development strength is the key. "In the construction of high-end, consumers are more concerned about not price, but quality assurance, whether the enterprise has research and development strength, core technology, are very important indicators," he pointed out, core technology, research and development capabilities are also a very important criterion for the market to measure the market value of enterprises.