Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1198
Kuaigou taxi breaks, this year’s first China Internet IPO
On June 24, Kuaigou Taxi was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the stock price was as turbulent as the listing process . After the opening, it rose by more than 7%, broke in the afternoon, and finally closed down 22%. The market value fell from HK$13.2 billion to HK$10.3 billion.
According to the data compiled by “Waidian Finance” from Wind, Kuaigou Dache is the first IPO of a Chinese Internet company in Hong Kong and US stocks this year. Previously, Zhihu, Weilai, and Shell’s Hong Kong stock listings were all dual-primary listings. They did not raise funds and were originally listed on U.S. stocks. Youbao, the Hong Kong IPO this month, is an unmanned retail concept.
The predecessor of Kuaigou Taxi was 58 Express, which was established in 2014, backed by the user base of 58.com. The cargo pulls established at about the same period are similar to direct cold start by comparison. In 2017, Kuaigou Dache acquired GOGOVAN, an intra-city freight platform in Hong Kong, China. It will be three years since Didi launched its intra-city freight business.
But both Lala and Didi get more money than Kuaigou. According to reports, Huo Lala received its first $10 million angel round of financing in 2015, and received a $1.5 billion F round of financing led by Hillhouse in January last year; Didi Freight received $1.5 billion in January last year. USD Series A – $1.5 billion is almost the entire market cap of Kuaigou.
The fast dog was clearly behind. According to the prospectus, Kuaigou’s first Series A financing was in July 2018, and Taobao China invested about $120 million; the Series B raised nearly $330 million, and the most recent round was about $63 million in the C round last year. That adds up to just over $500 million. In this listing, they initially planned to raise between $400 million and $500 million, but ended up raising only $85 million. The overall environment and trends in the industry have an impact.
More money can support more marketing and subsidies, which is an important factor for Huolala, Manbang and Didi Freight to steal industry share at different times. In July last year, Kuaigou Taxi CEO He Song said, “The subsidy war is an infinite game of capital, which will not help the industry and will not win a real victory.”
From 2018 to 2021, Kuaigou’s revenue only increased from 450 million yuan to 660 million yuan. The net loss in the same period seems to have narrowed from 1.07 billion yuan to 870 million yuan – but in fact, due to the addition of Didi in 2020, Kuaigou Taxi was forced to follow the subsidy war. The annual loss growth rate exceeded 250%, and the net loss was 658 million. Yuan. The money that was burned was not converted into market share. Kuaigou ranked second with a market share of 5.5% in 2020, and will shrink to 3.2% in 2021, falling to third place, behind Huolala (52.8%) and Didi Cargo (5.5%).
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Unlike travel platforms where “capacity is the core”, the key to freight platforms is the shipper (customer). The most obvious difference between the two types of platforms is that there is no obvious peak period for freight, the demand is relatively less immediate, and the density of drivers is lower; on the other hand, freight services are more difficult to standardize, involving the type of goods, size and weight, etc. It is necessary to negotiate more with the driver, so shippers generally value service quality and rely more on the platform, which can relatively form barriers.
The more shippers (orders) on the platform, the more attractive drivers can be, and the more rules can be used to manage driver behavior, which in turn is conducive to shipper retention. Take Lala as an example. According to reports, it is easier to grab orders because of high scores, and even black products have appeared.
Kuaigou’s prospectus also said that business success mainly depends on the “scale of the shipper” and then the “driver.” It also mentioned increased order subsidies for shippers in response to competition. In 2018, the driver and the shipper each took half of each order subsidized, and by 2021, more than 90% will be given to the shipper. But the total amount is not much higher. From 2018 to 2021, the average subsidy for each order is 6.07 yuan, 2.22 yuan, 1.74 yuan, and 6.82 yuan.
Customers are taken away by their more aggressive counterparts. The prospectus mentioned that with the intensification of industry competition, the number of monthly active shippers on the platform has decreased. From 2018 to 2021, the number of monthly active consignors will be 690,000, 680,000, 490,000, and 460,000, and the number of active drivers will be 220,000, 270,000, 230,000, and 210,000. The Kuaigou taxi platform has a total of 27.6 million registered shippers and 5.2 million registered drivers. (Lin Guangying)
109,300% investment “opportunity”
This year, there have been frequent debt default risk events of Chinese-funded real estate companies. According to data compiled by Oriental Fortune Choice, at least 25 Chinese-funded real estate companies have partially or completely defaulted 177 times. In May alone, there were 6 real estate companies that issued US dollar bonds exposed to credit risk, involving about US$7 billion.
Bonds with high default risk usually have low bond prices and high yields. The more the market believes the bond will default, the higher the yield. Hong Hao, the former chief strategist of Bank of Communications International, recently shared the yield-to-maturity data of a group of bonds on social media. The US$200 million bond of Sunshine City Group due on September 8, 2022 has a yield of 109,300.05%. A COFCO bond of US$200 million due on July 29 has a yield to maturity of 86,598.38%.
- The yield to maturity (6 months) of corporate bonds rated CCC is also only “34.0585%”.
- In March this year, Sunshine City defaulted on more than 5 billion yuan of debt in one day. A month later, about 3 billion yuan in domestic debt defaults and about 109 million US dollars in overseas debt defaults.
- From April to May, Rongsheng, Zhengrong, Sunac, Logan and many other real estate companies announced or planned to roll over their bonds.
- In the first half of the year, Sunac, Agile, Shimao, Fantasia and other real estate companies sold some or all of their project interests.
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According to simple statistics compiled by Wind, in the last week of June, about US$4.1 billion in bonds of Chinese-funded real estate companies matured, and the maturity scale of US dollar bonds in the second half of the year is as follows:
- July, $6.8 billion
- In August, $3.3 billion
- $4.4 billion in September
- $5 billion in October
- $3.5 billion in November
- $1.7 billion in December
- $24.7 billion in total
The supervision has noticed the risks. On March 16, 2022, the Financial Committee of the State Council held a special meeting to make relevant statements on real estate companies: “It is necessary to timely research and propose effective and effective response plans to prevent and defuse risks, and propose supporting measures for the transformation to a new development model. “.
- However, Haitong Securities also reminded, “As sales collection continues to be poor and banks and non-banks continue to tighten their risk exposures to the real estate industry, especially private real estate companies that are at risk, the follow-up wave of rollovers will continue… Although the policy will ease, But strong stimulation doesn’t happen easily.”
- Founder Securities believes that the growth rate of real estate sales in 30 large and medium-sized cities has been around -50% year-on-year since May, and the fundamentals still need time to be repaired. Real estate companies still face poor cash flow conditions, high pressure on short-term bond maturity and repayment, and possible default chains. Triple risk of conduction.
- According to statistics from the new media of Caijing, many Chinese-funded real estate companies have recently been downgraded or put on watch lists by the three major international rating agencies. Among them, Greenland was downgraded three times by S&P within a month. (Gong Fangyi)
Ideal relies on joint venture supplementary course supply chain capabilities, but insists on chassis and intelligent self-research
This week, Late Finance participated in the media communication meeting of the new car L9 held by Lili Auto. Li Xiang, Chairman and CEO of Ideal Motors, Liu Liguo, Vice President of Vehicle Electric, Gou Xiaofei, Vice President of Smart Space, and Lang Xianpeng, Vice President of Intelligent Driving, attended the event. In addition to answering the new car sales and production capacity expectations that the market cares about, they also talked about the self-development of Ideal Motors. incentives for research or joint ventures to control a technology.
The following is a live dictation of the ideal executive team, and we fine-tuned the text to make it read more smoothly without changing the original meaning. Unless otherwise noted, it is Li Xiang’s answer.
Don’t worry about L9 sales, new car sales next year will exceed market imagination
- L9 sales will definitely exceed the ideal ONE.
- The user group for Li Auto’s family positioning is not narrow, and as high as 89% of the purchase group of more than 200,000 are home users. The people who should buy 300,000-350,000 remain unchanged, and the price range above 400,000 is a very healthy market.
- I don’t believe anyone can do more market research than I did at Autohome. As high as 89% of the purchase group of more than 200,000 are the purchase group of home users, but if I talk about high-end to the market every day, no one will care about you, and even the team does not know how to make products, and randomly brushes the presence of products on the products. I think it’s high end.
- In the future, our target volume is larger, including the cars that everyone will see next year and the year after, which will be a sales space that will exceed everyone’s imagination in the past.
Pull the products that people thought were unattainable and cost one or two million in the past to the price range of luxury brand mid-size cars
- Anyone who makes products will study Apple, hoping that they can make products like Apple, but I rarely see a company that really studies what Apple is doing.
- What Apple does is – I let everyone go up enough, and you can buy a product experience and product details that were only available at the luxury level and at a very high level in the past. This is the core concept of Apple. And in order to do this, there must be a lot of innovation in technology and experience before users are willing to accept it.
- Let me give another example, our supplier said that it exceeded their expectations, because the price of the ideal ONE is similar to the starting price of the Audi Q7 (Note: European and American markets). But the Audi Q7 has four-cylinder petrol/four-cylinder diesel, six-cylinder petrol/six-cylinder diesel, eight-cylinder petrol/eight-cylinder diesel, and hybrid, and it has a five-seat version, a seven-seat version, and a five-seat version. The seat version also comes in a variety of different configurations. The global sales volume of Audi Q7 is currently about 3,000 to 5,000 vehicles, and these sales are to share the research and development costs of different seats and different configurations. And the ideal ONE has more than 100,000 units a year and 10,000 units a month, just one set of things, so the entire cost is completely different.
- Therefore, we can boldly use such a method to pull these products, which were considered unattainable by more than 1 million or more than 2 million in the past, to the price of a luxury brand mid-size car, so that everyone can get it – this is what we are serious about After researching Apple, I got the core idea of Apple. Apple’s stuff is a little expensive, but Apple’s stuff is very cost-effective.
Ideal relies on joint venture supplementary course supply chain capabilities
- If you don’t invest money, technology, and people in this area, it’s impossible to sit there and wait for the supply chain to get better. The sales of cars in the next year and the next year will exceed expectations, but suppliers do not believe it.
- Ideal holds a range extender supplier. Motors, batteries, five-in-one power, and seats are all joint ventures with suppliers to build factories or production lines. The best way is a joint venture, which can ensure that the technology is controllable, the second is to ensure supply, and the third is cut costs.
- The range extender is an ideal holding company, and the motor and battery are a joint venture.
- The Changzhou factory can meet the production capacity needs. The biggest bottleneck is not its own factory, but the control of various surrounding supply chains. We manage the entire R&D quality, including supply chain manufacturing, by ourselves.
- When there is a problem with the supply of a certain chip, we can go to another one, because the entire hardware design driver layer and software layer algorithm layer are in our own hands, which is actually the same as Tesla.
But insist on chassis and intelligent self-research
- The chassis team cooperates with the world’s top engineering companies; the sensors are better integrated in the system architecture, and there will be better upgrades in the future, because all the codes and all algorithms are in our own hands, combined with more The recognition of external sensors will make our comfort control better and better. (Liguo Liu, Vice President of Vehicle Electric at Lili Auto)
- Ideal Car has 4 AI and algorithm teams running independently.
- Corresponding to four different scenarios, the largest is Dr. Lang Xianpeng, the second is Gou Xiaofei, the third is Wang Yang’s internal system, and the fourth is Liu Liguo’s team. In the past three years, it has been earnestly pooling talents.
- Including sales, factory systems are developed by ourselves, without purchasing any suppliers.
- Predictions including range extenders, working road conditions for range extension, suspension, and battery failures are all done through algorithms and artificial intelligence. (Dou Yajuan)
Bosideng’s down jacket business operating profit margin declines
Bosideng announced on June 24 data for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, with a total revenue of 16.21 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.0%. Gross profit margin hit another record high, up 1.5 percentage points year-on-year to 60.1%. However, the operating profit margin of its down apparel business fell by 1.8 percentage points to 17.8% due to increased market expenses.
Specific to the revenue composition and growth of the core down jacket business:
- Bosideng’s revenue was 11.62 billion yuan (+16%), gross profit margin was 69.4% (+3.2 pct), and both sales volume and revenue increased.
- In online sales, the proportion of revenue from products over 1,800 yuan increased significantly from 31.8% in the same period last year to 46.9%.
- Inventory turnover days decreased by 25 days year-on-year.
- Xuezhongfei’s revenue was 974 million (+76.6%), with a gross profit margin of 47.3% (+8.4 Pct). The growth mainly relies on online brand authorized distribution and live streaming.
- As of the end of the fiscal year, Douyin had more than 4.9 million followers, and WeChat Official Account followers exceeded 6.3 million.
- Bingjie’s revenue was 235 million (+60.3%), gross profit margin was 24.8% (-10.4pp), and the main sales channel shifted from offline to online, exchanging profits for growth.
The revenue contribution of non-“Bosideng” brand down jackets is not as good as that of the OEM order business. The revenue in the fiscal year was 1.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.8%. (Gong Fangyi)
The EU bans the sale of fuel vehicles in 2035, easier said than done
- Germany’s finance minister made it clear on Tuesday (June 21) that Germany would not agree to the European Union’s ban on the sale of new fuel vehicles from 2035. He was referring to proposals passed by the European Parliament earlier this month, including calls for a 100 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from new cars by 2035 — meaning no new gasoline, or hybrid, cars can be sold.
- However, the proposal has to be signed by 27 EU countries before legislation, which does not seem easy at present. The EU’s most influential Germany and France are not in favor of a complete ban, believing that the plan is too radical and will cause great harm to the auto industry. Italy is trying to secure exemptions for luxury carmakers such as Ferrari.
- Auto suppliers in Europe are the most aggressive opponents, reporting earlier that 500,000 jobs may have to be cut by 2040 as vehicles electrify. Because compared with fuel vehicles, the structure of electric vehicles is much simpler. For example, the wheels can be directly driven by electric motors, saving complex accessories such as differentials, clutches, and sleeve shafts. With less production demand, there will naturally be fewer workers.
- Car companies generally expressed support. Audi announced this week that it will only develop electric cars from 2026 and only sell electric cars through 2035. Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, which have launched a number of electric models, also expressed their support, believing that the ban on sales can be achieved. However, car companies also mentioned that the government also needs to improve infrastructure, such as charging networks.
- Car companies such as Ford and Volvo are even urging legislation as soon as possible, hoping to pass the law to ensure that the market will indeed switch to electric vehicles. Some media commented that the EU’s vote is more of a show of determination, so that car companies have the confidence to invest heavily in promoting the transformation of electric vehicles. (Lin Guangying)
McDonald’s to impose toughest scrutiny on U.S. franchisees in decades
McDonald’s is planning its biggest change in decades to the franchise system that underpins its U.S. operations. Franchisees must undergo increased scrutiny every 20 years in order to keep their restaurants, according to an email sent by McDonald’s executives to franchisees.
“Stronger” scrutiny includes:
- performance and require owners to submit an application to reserve their place.
- Customer complaints to decide which franchisees can add new locations.
- The next generation of heirs are required to put in more cash to continue operating the storefront and designate a single family member as the operator. Current McDonald’s franchisees can name several heirs.
95% of McDonald’s local restaurants are franchise stores, and operators pay McDonald’s royalties and lease McDonald’s properties. Rather than saying that McDonald’s is a hamburger company, it is better to say that it is a real estate developer.
- In 2021, McDonald’s will have a total of 13,679 restaurants in the United States, according to its disclosure documents. Last year, more than 1,750 McDonald’s locations changed hands.
Some McDonald’s bosses say they were caught off guard by the new rules. The National Association of McDonald’s Operators has sent out a message to franchisees on Thursday (June 23), asking if they should hold a vote of no confidence in the company’s CEO Chris Kempczinski.
- “This change is in principle. Access to new franchise terms is earned, not given,” McDonald’s said in a notification email to its franchisees.
- McDonald’s is expected to begin changing franchise review conditions in January. (Intern Han Chang)
CHART OF THE DAY | Pulp prices continue to rise, but not reflected in downstream finished products
- According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in mid-June, the price of pulp (imported softwood pulp) was 7,274.4 yuan/ton, up nearly 20% from the beginning of the year; the price of corrugated paper was 3,650 yuan/ton, down 6.4% from the beginning of the year.
- Imported softwood pulp belongs to wood pulp and is generally used in the manufacture of toilet paper, cultural paper, and some packaging papers. There is also waste paper pulp, which can be used to make corrugated paper. (Lin Guangying)
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OTHER NEWS
The ideal L9 was released for three days, and more than 30,000 users paid a deposit of 5,000 yuan.
Li Xiang said at the media communication meeting on June 22: “The L9 sales will definitely exceed the ideal One. Let’s just look at the sales volume, the order is useless, the sales volume and the delivery volume.” According to the ideal official data, booking The user’s favorite color is gray metallic paint, and the least favorite is purple special edition pearl paint; most car owners choose black and white two-tone interior, followed by black and orange two-tone interior, and the least choose black and coffee two-tone interior.
HowNet is subject to cybersecurity review.
According to an announcement by the Cybersecurity Review Office , the security review was launched on June 23. The announcement stated that CNKI has a large amount of personal information and important data related to key industries such as national defense, industry, telecommunications, transportation, natural resources, health care, and finance.
Old users drove BOSS Zhipin’s first-quarter revenue to increase by 44% year-on-year.
BOSS Zhipin’s revenue in the first quarter of this year was 1.14 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44%, and its net loss shrank to 12.2 million yuan. Among them, the service revenue for corporate customers was 1.127 billion yuan, and the value-added service revenue for job seekers was 10.6 million yuan. Management said that the ARPU (average revenue per user) of large enterprises remained stable, and that small and medium-sized enterprises have recovered rapidly recently. Although there are no new users, the stickiness of old users is strong, and the frequent job changes of employees are beneficial to the short-term growth of Boss’ direct employment to some extent.
The average price of live pigs (external three yuan) increased by 10.12% year-on-year, and the price of feed raw materials continued to fluctuate.
According to the data monitoring of China Pig Network’s pig price system, on June 23, the average price of live pigs (external three yuan) was 17.52 yuan/kg, an increase of 10.12% month-on-month and 38.28% year-on-year. The market generally believes that the recent increase in pig prices is mainly due to the corresponding reduction in the number of live pigs listed this year due to the production capacity reduction stage of the breeding sows in the same period last year; coupled with the impact of swine fever in the winter of last year, the current supply of pig sources in the market has been interrupted. At the end of May, there were 41.92 million breeding sows in China, a seven-year high. The number of inventories at the end of the month decreased year-on-year for three consecutive months.
The daily volume of STO Express exceeded 45 million, a year-on-year increase of 30%.
Affected by the recovery of business volume during 618, the average daily order volume of Shentong Express has exceeded 45 million orders for several consecutive days since June 20, a year-on-year increase of 30%. In May, which was affected by the Shanghai epidemic, the revenue of Shentong express service industry was 2.553 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.03%, and the express service single ticket revenue was 255 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.19%.
The resumption of inter-provincial team travel in many places is expected to catch up with the summer season.
In the past week, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Hubei have successively announced the resumption of inter-provincial team travel. They are the last provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) to resume before the summer vacation. Since March this year, inter-provincial team tours have been suspended in many places; starting in May, Jiangxi, Gansu, Shandong and other places have resumed one after another. To catch up with the summer vacation, according to Ctrip data, the number of inter-provincial group tour bookings in the past week has increased by 291% week-on-week, and the number of cross-provincial hotel reservations has increased by 151% week-on-week.
Chow Tai Fook offered to acquire Giordano at a premium of 18%.
The Cheng Yutong family, the third richest man on Hong Kong Island, plans to acquire all the issued shares of Giordano through its Chow Tai Fook Holdings, with a total consideration of up to HK$2.56 billion. Giordano currently has about 2,100 stores in more than 30 countries and regions, with revenue of HK$3.4 billion and net profit of HK$190 million in 2021, both improved compared with 2020, but not as good as before the epidemic. Chow Tai Fook is currently the largest shareholder of Giordano, holding 24.57% of the shares; after the acquisition, it plans to use shareholder resources, such as contacts and experience in the retail industry, to improve performance, and there is no plan to lay off employees or sell assets.
In order to reduce the inconvenience of international tourists, the Hong Kong SAR may allow entry to home quarantine or reduce the number of quarantine days.
Li Jiachao, the chief executive-designate of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, who will take office on July 1, said that he will review the current entry quarantine measures as soon as possible, and consider allowing inbound tourists to be quarantined at home or reduce the number of days of hotel quarantine; he said that he will work hard to reduce the inconvenience of international tourists, and at the same time Do not increase risks to the mainland. The incoming health secretary said that about 1% of tourists visiting Hong Kong are currently infected with the new crown. If the infected person can be found earlier, it is expected that the number of quarantine days will be shortened from the current 7 days to 5 days or less.
The heavy rains in Guangdong for several days caused agricultural losses to exceed 300 million, and 100,000 farmers were affected.
Many places in Guangdong Province have suffered continuous heavy rains in recent days. Qingyuan, Shaoguan, Zhaoqing and other places in northern Guangdong have issued flood warnings. Some towns and towns are still soaked in floods, and the planting industry has suffered the most serious damage. According to the Guangdong Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau, as of June 23, the province’s agricultural insurance reported losses of about 329 million yuan, including 298 million yuan for planting and 30.96 million yuan for breeding, involving 102,800 farmers; rural housing insurance is expected to damage 12,374 farm houses. pieces. It is expected that the number will continue to increase in the future.
Macau, China reported 60 new cases of infection in the past 24 hours, and the government urged not to abandon pets.
As of 0:00 on June 24, a total of 125 cases have been diagnosed in Macau, China, and 332 asymptomatic cases; as of 15:00 on the 24th, 60 new infections have been detected in the past 24 hours. The government provides pet temporary care services for people who are diagnosed or quarantined, and appeals not to leave pets alone at home, let alone listen to rumors and abandon pets. On the 23rd, Guangdong added 1 local confirmed case and 4 asymptomatic cases, all in Shenzhen. There were 7 new asymptomatic cases in Jilin City and 1 new case in Yanbian Prefecture.
Data simulations show that the new crown vaccine saves 19.8 million lives a year.
The medical journal “The Lancet” recently published a mathematical modeling study showing that a year after the introduction of the new crown vaccine, the number of potential deaths in the world has been reduced by half, about 19.8 million, of which 15.5 million are due to the vaccine reducing the risk of severe illness, and 4.3 million. Is it because of reduced risk of transmission or medical runs. Although the study has many limitations, it still shows the importance of vaccines, the researchers said. The WHO mentioned last month that by the end of last year, the number of deaths directly or indirectly caused by the new crown could be as high as 14.9 million.
GM’s Cruise started charging for fully driverless taxis.
GM’s self-driving company Cruise is accelerating the rollout of its driverless taxi service, which it plans to expand to all of San Francisco this year, other cities next year, and to expand its fleet from 100 now to thousands within a year or two. Earlier this month, Cruise became the first company to receive a fully driverless taxi fare in San Francisco, starting Wednesday (June 23) with a toll service in one-third of San Francisco. The company expects each vehicle to bring in tens of thousands of dollars a year and $50 billion in revenue by 2030.
The U.S. energy secretary urged oil companies to lower high oil prices.
On June 23, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm urged executives at major U.S. oil companies and refineries to increase refining capacity to help lower prices. As of early 2022, U.S. refining capacity has fallen to about 17.9 million barrels per day, down about 5.4% from early 2020; the number of refineries has dropped from 135 to 130. Oil companies have complained that oil companies have been forced to reduce investment and limited capacity expansion in recent years.
The title picture comes from the movie “Daydreamer”
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