月度归档 2024年8月11日

　　On July 29th, Shanghai. There were still 3 minutes before 16:00. Kobayashi opened the Ele.me APP and added 3 cups of milk tea to the shopping cart in advance. At 16:00, Kobayashi submitted the order on time and waited nervously for the "gift" from Lucky Muse.

　　This is the "Guessing the answer and free order (that is, free order for 1 minute) " activity launched by Ele.me from June 21st (hereinafter referred to as the "free order activity"). The rules are: the platform publishes the question the day before, and the clue points to one or more groups of time. The next day, users have the opportunity to place an order within a specified minute. The upper limit of the free order amount in the early stage is 200 yuan, and the maximum is adjusted to 56 yuan in the later stage. So far, the activity has been held to the 5th issue, and has derived gameplay such as "whole network questions" "free order per minute" "double happy" "city special".

　　Kobayashi participated in the "city special". The day before, the number of votes in Shanghai exceeded Wuhan and thus won 80,000 free places, 10,000 in each game, a total of 8 games. In the end, Kobayashi became the lucky one of the more than 9,300th people to be exempted from the game. "Thrilling, fortunately I won the bet today".

　　Ele.me is a generous "treat", which is very eye-catching in the short term. How much bonus can it bring in the long run? It is also worth observing.

　　The form of free order is not new, and there are two reasons behind the high attention of the harvest.

　　Since its launch, Ele.me free-order activities have exploded in popularity, from "free-order answer" to "free-order time" to take turns on hot searches; as of August 2, #Ele.me free-order #topic has accumulated more than 3.70 billion reads on Weibo, and more than 50,000 notes on Xiaohongshu with the same keyword.

　　Source: Network

　　In fact, the form of free shopping is not uncommon. Dianping next door has played the set of "please eat" very well, VIP has the opportunity to be selected to eat "Overlord meal", and the corresponding only need to write "after eating"; many platforms and merchants will also solicit business with free shopping benefits on specific days.

　　Why is it that a form that is not novel can attract high attention? Market participants have explained to Hexun Finance that the free-order activity just happens to grasp the psychology of young people who love to pick up wool. If you guess the wrong answer, there is no loss. After all, three meals a day are rigid needs; if you guess correctly, it is the icing on the cake, why not do it? Therefore, many netizens joked that "betting on dogs will never give up" and "betting on nothing in the end".

　　In addition, the free-order activity is simpler and more crude than coupon return, collection and other preferential forms. As of June 30, the first phase of the activity has been free of charge for more than 956,000 orders. If calculated according to half of the maximum free-order 200 yuan in the period, Ele.me will pay nearly 10 million. After 5 periods, the number will be even larger.

　　The other side of the eye: from the title to the free order conditions have been complained

　　The development of free-order activities has not been smooth sailing, and Ele.me has also encountered user backlash in the topics, free-order conditions, and other links.

　　The title is usually a picture, covering elements such as guessing people’s names, chemical molecular formulas, traditional Chinese medicine, and music scores. Within two days of the event, the following beach beauty attracted controversy because all the number clues were invalid. The correct problem-solving pose is: The shape of the flowers is the root sign, and there are two people under the house, so the number in the root is 2. √ 2 is equal to 1.4142135623, and the ending number is June 23 of the day, so the free order time is 14:14 and 21:35 respectively.

　　This "bizarre" answer made users shout "You can play by yourself" "I’m really speechless, I’m going down". Some netizens said that they were not angry because the question was difficult, but because the question was illogical.

　　The free-order conditions are also full of controversy. For example, on July 17, Ele.me opened a "Black Diamond Special", and platform members had the opportunity to get free orders without answering questions. Facts have proved that the free benefits for members are not easy to get. On the Black Cat complaint, since July 18, netizens have participated in collective complaints one after another, saying that although they are Black Diamond members, they have not been free of orders in the special session.

　　Source: Black Cat Complaint

　　In addition, the "city special" has also been complained. In order to get more votes in the city, some people have fancy canvassing votes, and some people have questioned that the small city has no sense of participation, which once caused regional "scolding wars".

　　Source: Network

　　It is worth mentioning that in order to strengthen the food safety supervision of food delivery platforms, on July 21, the Market Supervision Bureau of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province interviewed the city’s Meituan, Ele.me and other food delivery platforms. One of the requirements is that "the catering industry should further standardize the business order, strictly prohibit vicious competition, and do not allow low-price dumping to disrupt the market order." This also makes the market full of worries: is it referring to the Ele.me free-order event? Can the free-order event continue?

　　However, on July 30, Ele.me announced that it would continue to hold its fifth edition from July 31 to August 7.

　　Thousands of investments benefit many parties, but the biggest winner is the platform

　　With praise and criticism, is this multi-million-dollar business still cost-effective? From the perspective of relevant parties, the free-order activity has benefited consumers, merchants and platforms.

　　"Nothing else, just hope you are happy", consumers did reap happy and free benefits. According to media reports, some people even ate 6 meals a day for picking wool.

　　For the food and beverage merchants who have been suffering from the epidemic for a long time, Zhou Di, a senior engineer of Fangrong Technology and a national science and technology expert of the Ministry of Science and Technology, told Hexun Finance, "The free-order activity has brought significant benefits, and consumers’ enthusiasm for participation is high. Many merchants have strong order growth and a significant recovery trend. Many merchants’like to mention ‘new daily peaks. The increasing order volume has injected business motivation into merchants and ignited consumption passion." Zhou Di also pointed out that the business growth brought by "free-order 1 minute" is "more than 1 minute": After the consumption peak at the beginning of the activity, the order volume still increased significantly for many consecutive days. The data shows that more than 300,000 merchants are involved in orders related to one phase of the activity alone.

　　However, there is no free lunch in the world, and the biggest beneficiary is Ele.me. Seven data show that on June 21, the day of the official announcement of the free-order event, Ele.me APP jumped to the sixth place in the IOS free list, setting a new high in nearly three months.

　　Source: Qimai Data

　　Gao Zelong, a digital economy expert and expert consultant of MIIT’s Leading Talent Program, said that "this is a good public relations, publicity and marketing tool," and explained in detail, "On the one hand, Ele.me claims that the first phase of the event has been free of orders for more than 956,000 orders, which is nearly 1 million self-media communication. I believe that many users who are free of orders will send Moments. This communication effect is huge; on the other hand, the platform bears tens of millions of yuan in free orders, which is really nothing for a tech giant like Ele.me, not to mention that the cost of tens of millions of yuan may eventually be borne by merchants, not Ele.me itself. In any case, there is always a way for the platform to pass on these costs to the merchants; in the end, through such activities or events, it may also get media attention, which is even more cost-effective. "

　　Can free shopping save falling market share? Experts say "thousands of problems need to be solved"

　　The free-order activity is in full swing, and the platform anxiety behind it has also begun to surface.

　　At present, China’s takeaway market is still a "two-world" situation. After being "born" in 2008 and acquiring Baidu takeaway in August 2017, Ele.me’s market share once reached 54%, making it a well-deserved takeaway giant.

　　But starting in the second half of 2018, Ele.me was gradually overtaken by Meituan. In July 2020, its market share fell below 30%, and further fell to about 25% in the first half of 2021; in 2022, according to the 2022 Meituan and its industrial chain research report, Meituan’s market share in the takeaway field may approach 70%, its revenue is three times that of Ele.me, and it has an early advantage in the lower-tier market.

　　Although the two leaders have occupied more than 90% of the market share, there are still many rich and powerful players eyeing the position of the second child. In June, JD.com Retail CEO Xin Lijun confirmed in an interview that the company has considered entering the takeaway business; recently, Douyin has also begun to test the group buying home business. After users place an order in the catering live stream, they can ask the merchant to deliver it to their home. Earlier, SF Express incubated the group meal platform "Fengshi" in 2020.

　　Although there is no head-to-head confrontation, the future that can be met may usher in changes. Zhou Di pointed out that during this time, the economic operation has been greatly affected by the epidemic, and many catering companies have lost confidence in operating. At the same time, many Internet Tech Giants have flooded into the catering track. It has caused great pressure on Ele.me. In this case, Ele.me needs a mass traffic event to arouse everyone’s attention and re-raise the heat.

　　After Ele.me, JD.com and Meituan are also eager to try. The former launched the "Grab Free Orders, Not Alone" activity on July 28, in a format highly similar to "Free Orders for 1 Minute". Users have the opportunity to get free orders when they place an order at a specified time after guessing the puzzle; the latter started on July 31, and users place three orders randomly free of one order.

　　"This is reminiscent of Didi and Kuaidi’s online car-hailing subsidy war a few years ago. This kind of platform subsidy requires huge investment, but it is often very effective. It is an effective means to quickly acquire users and occupy the market," Gao Zelong told Hexun Finance.

　　"This is just one of the many factors for the success of the platform," Gao Zelong also said. What is the key to the long-term retention of users of the food delivery platform? In his opinion, whether it is Ele.me or JD.com, Meituan, to achieve ultimate success, it needs to solve thousands of problems, which is extremely difficult and complex.

A few days ago, at the 9th China Entrepreneur Development Annual Conference, Cao Dewang, chairperson of Fuyao Glass Group, talked about the crisis of Hengda, saying that Xu Jiayin 3.90 billion of his own capital in total, and actually loans can reach two trillion.

When referring to Evergrande’s current problems, Cao Dewang pointed out that the main reason for Evergrande’s collapse may be problems with its own investment decisions. "When we were studying abroad, there may be some punctuation marks that we didn’t see, didn’t learn well, and didn’t express clearly enough, so this kind of thing happened."

Cao Dewang also said that for the development of a company, it must have its own bottom line. "Don’t be greedy, but take it step by step. If you want to dig other people’s hearts, you should worry about whether your heart will be dug away." The correct and reasonable approach is to take it step by step, accumulate slowly, create dividends or wait for the market to give dividends, rather than relying on speculation and blind gambling.

In the past, Evergrande’s ambition in the automotive industry was very large, and it even felt like a gamble. Regarding the six new energy vehicles released by Evergrande in one go, Cao Dewang commented: "This is done by rich people like Xu Jiayin. If it is completely subsidized, it will be waiting for death."

At the 12th Auto Blue Book Forum last year, Cao Dewang once proposed that entrepreneurs should have three major responsibilities. The country is strong because of you, the society is advanced because of you, and the people are prosperous because of you. This is what an entrepreneur needs to do. If you can’t do it, don’t think about making money. "I have money and I want to save society!"

"The most successful approach is to adhere to the ancestral motto of respecting heaven and loving others. This is what Mr. Wang Yangming said, that is, we must adhere to this principle." Cao Dewang said this is the basic principle he has adhered to throughout his years of entrepreneurship and development.

However, Xu Jiayin seems to have abandoned some basic principles in the development of Evergrande. At present, the entire Evergrande group is not developing well, but Xu Jiayin is indeed an economically minded businessperson. From the very beginning of the high-profile announcement of entering the automotive field, Xu Jiayin saw the opportunity of the new energy automobile industry and the potential huge golden mountain behind it, but he ignored the basic laws and laws of this industry.

In just two years, Evergrande has gone from "buying" a lot of auto parts suppliers to build its own cars, to threatening to become the world’s largest new energy vehicle group, to now planning to sell its electric vehicle stake. It has only been a year or so since the first release of six new models of Hengchi at the same time, and now it has failed in the car business.

This is indeed a bit ironic for Xu Jiayin, a very shrewd and successful business tycoon. The most obvious manifestation of this irony is the stock price.

Hong Kong shares of China Hengda fell to HK $1.60, continue to brush the historical low, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange shows that from December 6th to December 9th, Xu Jiayin continued to be forced to sell about 277.80 million shares of China Hengda. And Hengda Automobile recently the largest decline of more than 22%, other Hengda also continued to decline, Hengda property is down 13.21%, China Hengda fell 6.98%.

Freezing three feet is not a day’s cold. In the eyes of many industry insiders, the reason why Hengda Group and Hengda Automobile exploded and went to today’s situation is because the landmines have long been planted. Evergrande’s current crisis is most directly reflected in financial issues.

According to China Evergrande’s financial report, in 2020 Evergrande Group’s revenue 507.25 billion yuan, after-tax profit 31.40 billion yuan, down 6.4% year-on-year. In the first half of this year, the company’s revenue was 2226.9 billion yuan, down 16.48% year-on-year; after-tax profit 10.50 billion yuan, down 28.87% year-on-year. As of June this year, Evergrande’s total assets 2.38 trillion yuan, total liabilities reached 1.97 trillion yuan, and the debt ratio exceeded 80%.

Among them, Hengda Automobile, which has high hopes, posted a net loss of 7.74 billion yuan in 2020, an increase of 55% year-on-year, while the company’s loss expanded to 4.82 billion yuan in the first half of this year, nearly doubling. As of the first half of the year, Hengda Automobile’s cash and cash equivalents were about 9.577 billion yuan, restricted cash reached 2.936 billion yuan, total liabilities reached 153 billion yuan, and the debt ratio exceeded 90%.

Evergrande’s continued losses have become a hot potato for the group; and Evergrande’s current high debt has seriously hindered Evergrande’s investment in new cars. The two continue to fall into a vicious circle, and the root cause is the lack of money. Ironically, Evergrande is currently struggling due to the break of the capital chain, but thinking back then, not short of money is precisely the embodiment of the greatest advantage of this new car-making force that is generally regarded by the outside world.

　　Writing | Willem

　　Editor | Mori Miao

　　Tao Huabi, founder of Laoganma, once said: The company can never go public because it has sufficient cash and does not do that deceptive thing.

　　For many self-made food companies that have been cultivating the market for many years, stable revenue and profits and sufficient cash reserves make them not have to worry about financing, but can proudly refuse olive branches from the outside world. But this situation is slowly changing. As the food fast-moving consumer goods industry enters a new stage, competition among enterprises is becoming increasingly fierce, and more and more companies are beginning to put aside their stubbornness in the past. Even Wahaha, who was in the "non-listing alliance" at the beginning, has changed his insistence for many years, believing that "after going public, it can accelerate the development of enterprises". As Wahaha’s opponent for many years, Nongfu Spring, the largest drinking water producer in China, has also been reported recently. It is said that the company plans to IPO in Hong Kong with a financing scale of more than 1 billion US dollars, and it will be carried out as early as the first half of next year. Regarding the rumor, the relevant person in charge of Nongfu Spring said in an interview with the media that he would not comment on the news. This ambiguous answer made capital markets imagine infinitely. You know, when Nongfu Spring was reported to have an IPO two years ago, the founder Zhong Xuanxian responded very firmly: the company does not need to go public. Two years have made Nongfu Spring’s attitude change a lot, and looking at the entire food fast-moving consumer goods industry, more companies have rushed ashore in the past two years, trying to seize the final trend in the IPO tide.

　　"Resolutely not listed" bottled water faucet, according to public information, Nongfu Spring was established in September 1996 and is headquartered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. It is a holding company of Yangshengtang. At that time, the advertisement "Nongfu Spring is a little sweet" helped it quickly occupy the market. In addition to our common drinking natural water, Nongfu Spring’s main business also includes the research and development and sales of various soft drinks such as fruit and vegetable juice drinks and tea drinks. At present, Nongfu Spring distributes its products to all parts of the country by building large-scale production and nationwide marketing networks in water sources such as Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang and Danjiangkou in Hubei.

　　(The picture comes from the official website of Nongfu Spring) Looking back on the development history of Nongfu Spring, the company has come a long way. In 2000, Nongfu Spring’s products switched from pure water to natural water, which made it successfully squeezed into the top three in the market. In 2007, Nongfu Spring began to advocate consumers to drink weakly alkaline water, which once again caused shock in the industry. In 2011, Nongfu Spring surpassed Master Kong to become the first in the packaged drinking water industry. According to data analytics company Nielsen, Nongfu Spring ranked first in the industry with a market share of 26.5% in 2018, followed by China Resources Yibao and Centennial Mountain with a market share of 21.3% and 10.1% respectively. Wahaha and Master Kang have long since withdrawn from the top three in the industry. For a long time, Nongfu Spring has been very low-key in the business world, and its founder Zhong Shansui is known for his mystery, which is called an invisible rich man by the capital circle. Because the company insists on not listing or financing all year round, its financial data has always been a mystery. However, according to the "2018 Zhejiang Business National Top 500 List" released by Zhejiang Business Magazine, Nongfu Spring’s revenue in 2017 reached 16.25 billion yuan, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year. In the three years from 2014 to 2016, Nongfu Spring’s revenue was 9.09 billion yuan, 12.60 billion yuan and 15 billion yuan respectively. In June this year, Yangshengtang Holdings’ Wantai Biological updated its prospectus and also revealed some of Nongfu Spring’s financial data. According to the prospectus of Wantai Bio, Nongfu Spring’s total assets in 2018 were 20.07 billion yuan, net assets were 14.411 billion yuan, net profit was 3.61 billion yuan, and the debt-to-equity ratio was 28.2%. With a low debt ratio and high net profit, Nongfu Spring was also called "selling water and milking milk" by capital markets, which is why Nongfu Spring was able to shout the slogan "not listed". However, the rumors from the outside world are not groundless. In fact, as early as ten years ago, Nongfu Spring tried to sprint the class A share IPO, and then entered a long tutoring period. In May 2008, Nongfu Spring and CITIC Securities (600030, stock bar) signed the "Initial Public Offering Stock Tutoring Work Agreement". From May to December 2008, Nongfu Spring received listing counseling, which included communication between CITIC Securities and Nongfu Spring management.Assist Nongfu Spring in sorting out specific development goals and ways to achieve them. However, at the beginning of this year, the "CITIC Securities joint stock company report on the termination of Nongfu Spring joint stock company counseling" issued by the Zhejiang Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Supervision Commission shows that Nongfu Spring has undergone ten years of listing counseling by CITIC Securities and terminated in December 2018. As to why Nongfu Spring terminated the ten-year listing counseling, Nongfu Spring said to the outside world that the company has no plans to go public, and does not need to use the power of capital markets, so it terminates the listing counseling. "Nongfu Spring started to participate in counseling ten years ago, and every time it has to report, so far it is a routine counseling. The company currently has abundant cash flow and has no listing plan," the company’s board secretary said.

　　According to the official website of Nongfu Spring, the company produces and operates dozens of products in four major series, including drinking water, fruit and vegetable juice drinks, functional drinks, and tea drinks. In addition to the familiar packaged drinking water brand Nongfu Spring, well-known brands in the market such as Nongfu Orchard, Scream, Water Soluble C100, and Oriental Leaves are also under its umbrella. Although it has not been active in listing, Nongfu Spring has been active in promoting new products and expanding its business. As a leader in China’s bottled water industry, Nongfu Spring has been actively expanding and investing more. In May 2010, Nongfu Spring invested at least 300 million yuan and signed a 10-year plan with Jiande City to build the Nongfu Spring factory project, saying that within ten years, Nongfu Spring will build 1.50 billion yuan in fixed assets in Jiande. In 2014, Nongfu Spring invested 1 billion yuan to establish the Emei Mountain factory, and then invested 500 million yuan to reach an agreement with the Jiangkou County Government to build a mineral water plant in Qindongping Town, Taiping Town, at the foot of Fanjing Mountain. In 2015, the Changbai Mountain (603099, stock bar) Fusong factory was fully put into use, officially entering the high-end water market, and launched Nongfu Spring glass bottle mineral water, natural drinking water suitable for infants and young children, and natural mineral water suitable for students. In August 2016, the fourth phase of the Nongfu Spring Jiande City project started with a total investment of more than 1 billion yuan. In October of the same year, the company invested 1.20 billion yuan to build its seventh factory in Zhejiang. At the end of 2016, Nongfu Spring Gannan Xinfeng County Navel Orange Factory was completed and put into operation, with a total investment of 680 million yuan.

　　(Nongfu Spring Jiande Base) In addition, in order to achieve upgrades, Nongfu Spring has also increased investment in technological product innovation. Among them, the parent company Yangshengtang invests more than 1 billion annually in this regard, which is also the reason why Nongfu Spring has continuously launched new products in addition to natural drinking water. Especially in 2019, in order to open up new growth points, Nongfu Spring began to accelerate its expansion into market segments, and successively launched the ready-to-drink coffee brand "Charcoal", the middle-aged and elderly beverage "Lithium Water", and the low-temperature juice "NFC Juice". It is not difficult to imagine that with the rapid expansion of Nongfu Spring, the demand for funds will inevitably increase gradually. Although the company currently has a good cash flow, it is natural to open up new funding channels if it wants to be more comfortable in the development of new projects. In fact, the growth rate of Nongfu Spring’s revenue has been slowing down year by year. In the "2018 Zhejiang Top 500 List", Nongfu Spring’s revenue in 2017 was 16.25 billion yuan, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year. In 2015 and 2016, its revenue growth rate was around 20%. On the other hand, the competition in the domestic bottled water market is also becoming more and more brutal. After Nongfu Spring, there are five major brands such as China Resources Yibao, Master Kang, Hundred Years Mountain, Wahaha, and Binglu. The competition among oligarchs is intensifying. Nongfu Spring cannot be said to be without pressure. In this context, listing has become an option worth considering for Nongfu Spring, which can give it more ammunition in the ever-changing capital markets and face increasingly powerful opponents more calmly. In this regard, Zhu Danpeng, a Chinese food industry analyst, once said that the listing of Nongfu Spring, whether from the capital chain, corporate goodwill, or from the development of multi-brand, multi-category, multi-channel, multi-consumption scenarios, multi-consumer groups, and the development trend of fast-moving consumer goods, has certain advantages and help. Xu Xiongjun, a strategic positioning expert, also believes that "although Nongfu Spring operates in many aspects, it still needs to carry out multi-brand layout to enhance the scale. The most direct way is to achieve rapid expansion through capital operation and reduce the chance of making mistakes. "

　　In fact, the entire food industry has entered a big year of listing in 2019, and many food companies have joined the IPO team. According to incomplete statistics from Node Finance (ID: jiedian2018), many leading food companies have "caught up with the tide" in 2019. Among them are West Wheat Food (002956, stock bar), which is mainly engaged in the production of oat food, Youyou Food (603697, stock bar), which is known as "the first stock of chicken feet", Tianwei Food (603317, stock bar), which specializes in hot pot seasoning, Three Squirrels (300783, stock bar), which started with dried fruits and casual snacks, Liangpin Shop, and New Dairy (002946, stock bar), Plum Garden, Feihe and other dairy companies. After that, there are Ganyuan Food, which specializes in processing beans and nuts, Zhancui Food, a cartoon snack foundry of Peppa Pig, Dongpeng Special Drinks, Huawen Food, the main company of "Jinzai", and Yoyo Orchard, which produces "Yoyo Plum".

　　Combing through the list of food companies with IPOs this year, it is not difficult to find that these companies can be roughly divided into three categories, one is the snack companies represented by Three Squirrels and Yoyo Orchard; the other is the dairy companies represented by Plum Garden and Feihe Dairy; the third is the condiment companies represented by Tianwei Food and Zhongjing Food. First, the listing of leisure snack companies has become the focus of the food industry this year. With the centralized listing of Three Squirrels, Yanjin Shop (002847, stock bar) and other companies, the road to upgrading of the leisure snack industry has officially opened, especially in the context of omni-channel has become the consensus of the industry, the willingness of leisure snack companies to impact the IPO has become more intense. Secondly, 2019 is also a key year for domestic dairy companies to intensively impact the capital markets. On January 25, the new dairy industry, which has rapidly expanded through the integration of regional dairy companies, was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange; on November 13, Feihe Dairy, which has been established for nearly 60 years, also sounded the bell for listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In addition, regional dairy companies such as Junyao Dairy, Huahua Niu, and Red Star Meiling are also actively promoting IPOs. In addition, the capital markets are also quite favorable to the condiment industry. In addition to Tianwei Food’s successful listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in April this year, many condiment companies have also rushed to A-shares and Hong Kong stocks. Moreover, with the opening of the domestic salt industry, many salt companies represented by Hunan Salt Industry (600929, stock bar), Shandong Salt Industry, and Jiangxi Salt Industry have also joined the IPO team. It is worth mentioning that in addition to brand manufacturers, food foundries have also become new members of the IPO army, among which Zhancui Food, which was established in 1996, is the most concerned. This factory that processes candy and chocolate for brands such as Peppa Pig, Minions, and Frozen, also decided to hit the capital markets. The food industry is the industry that is most in contact with people’s daily lives and is the most vulnerable to attention. Under the pursuit of capital, Haitian Flavor Industry (603288, stock bar), Fuling mustard (002507, stock bar) and other sub-enterprises have become large-market companies. Among them, the total market value of Haitian flavor industry has reached about 300 billion yuan, which will undoubtedly be a huge stimulus for Nongfu Spring or other food companies.

　　Many factors have contributed to the boom in capital markets. Behind the listing of many food companies, on the one hand, it is the favorable policy environment, and on the other hand, it is the pressure of the entire market environment and the company’s own operation. First of all, from the policy perspective, in 2017, 7 food companies went public smoothly. However, in 2018, under the situation of stricter review by the Issuance Examination Committee, Hairong Food, Dexing Food and other companies have suspended the review, and no one has attended the meeting throughout the year. In May 2019, at the annual meeting of the China Listed Companies Association, Yi Huiman, chairperson of the Securities Supervision Commission, said in response to the issue of IPO listing of enterprises that more outstanding enterprises from all walks of life will be attracted to list and continue to maintain the normality of IPO. The food industry, as an industry related to people’s livelihood, has naturally ushered in the upsurge of capital markets; as of the end of August this year, six companies have successfully obtained the approval of the Securities Supervision Commission.

　　Secondly, the listing of food companies at this time is also due to the critical period in the current food industry. According to the data of iiMedia Consulting in 2018, the retail sales of various sub-segments of the fast-moving consumer goods industry in our country continued to grow. Among them, grain, oil and food increased by 10.2% year-on-year, beverage increased by 9.0% year-on-year, tobacco and alcohol increased by 7.4% year-on-year, and daily necessities increased by 13.7% year-on-year. However, with the overall growth of the industry, the competition among enterprises is getting bigger and bigger. Taking the beverage industry where Nongfu Spring is located as an example, the data of the China Commercial Industry Research Institute shows that as of the end of May 2018, the number of enterprises in the beverage manufacturing industry in our country reached 6717, of which 881 were loss-making enterprises, with a total loss of 3.82 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.7%. In this critical period of the industry, almost all food companies are facing a life-and-death test. Surviving it means that they can achieve rapid development, otherwise, they are very likely to be eliminated by the market. And because the entry threshold of the food industry is relatively low, and there are many companies participating, capital and management have become the key to victory. In recent years, fast-moving consumer goods have fallen to the bottom, and almost all companies have begun to worry about cash flow, and some of their shortcomings have also been exposed due to financial problems. At present, many food companies have problems such as single products, categories, channels, scenarios, and consumer groups, which brings great risks to business operations. Listing can not only solve financing problems, but also solve some management problems, and also facilitate the rapid expansion of enterprises. On the day of Zhou Hei Duck’s listing, the official flagship store sold a total of 1.25 million boxes of goods. On the same day, the stock price rose by 13% to the close. It can be seen that in the domestic class A share listing, in addition to bringing sufficient capital transfusion, enterprises can also obtain a rapid increase in brand influence and a sharp rise in market value and valuation. Therefore, no matter how tight-lipped food companies like Nongfu Spring or Wahaha are, in the context of consumption upgrades and increasingly fierce platform competition, going public will become their next priority.

This article was first published on WeChat official account: Node Finance. The content of the article belongs to the author’s personal opinion and does not represent the position of Hexun.com. Investors operate accordingly, and please bear the risk.