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.
