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Note from Titanium Media: This article is sourced from the WeChat public account Dongshitiao Capital (ID: DsstCapital), author | Zhang Junwen, editor | Cao Weiyu, and published by Titanium Media with permission.
The Chinese company of Canadian national coffee Tims Hortons is finally going public.
This is the largest listed company on the coffee track in the past two years after Luckin Coffee was delisted from Nasdaq.
Silver Crest, a blank check company (SPAC), announced that the business combination between Silver Crest and Tims Hortons China has been declared effective by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on July 20, 2022, and a general meeting of shareholders will be held on August 18. With two-thirds of common stockholders voting in favor, the merger proposal will formally pass, and the combined entity will begin trading on the Nasdaq under the new ticker symbols “THCH” and “THCHW.” If the merger fails, Silver Crest will also face dissolution and liquidation.
Tims Hortons China has adopted the combination model of “SPAC+PIPE” to go public this time.
SPAC is what we often call the “blind box” for listing; and PIPE means that before listing, Tims China has received investment commitments for listing private equity in advance, but these investment commitments will be completed when Tims China and Silver Crest are listed and merged. At present, Tims China has received investment commitments from Sequoia China, Bell Capital, Descartes Capital Group, Restaurant Brands International (hereinafter referred to as “RBI”) and other institutions.
Adopting a portfolio model for listing can greatly increase the certainty of listing and the stability of valuation. You know, in March of this year, Tims China’s financing in the primary market was cold, and it has “self-reduced its valuation” by 300 million US dollars. In the face of expanding stores and continuing losses, it is reasonable for Tims China to go public.
The market share is 9 times that of Starbucks, and it has earned 907 million in three years after entering China.
In 1964, Tim Hortons, the legendary guard of the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey team, founded Tims Coffee in Hamilton, a small town next to Toronto, Canada.
After that, with the inspirational story of the founder, Tims Coffee became the national coffee of Canada, and its market share in Canada is 9 times that of Starbucks. Almost everyone on the street has a “little red cup” with donuts.
In 2018, Tims parent company RBI Group and Cartesian Capital Group jointly established Tims China. The former’s brands also include Burger King. In 2019, Tims Hortons officially entered the Chinese market and opened its first store in Shanghai.
Three and a half years after entering China, Tims China stores have rapidly increased to 450, and revenue has also grown rapidly. According to the data disclosed by Silver Crest, Tims China’s 2019-2021 revenue is 57.257 million yuan, 210 million yuan and 640 million yuan respectively, and the 2021 revenue is more than three times that of 2020.
However, while the store expansion brings revenue to the company, it also increases operating costs. The main operating costs in 2021 are the costs of raw materials, manpower, and rental costs, which are 207 million yuan, 199 million yuan, and 148 million yuan, accounting for 32.3%, 31%, and 23%, respectively.
Net losses also continued to widen. From 2019 to 2021, the net losses of Tims China were 87.828 million yuan, 140 million yuan and 380 million yuan respectively. The net loss in 2021 will more than double that in 2020. As of the end of 2021, Tims Coffee China still has 390 million yuan in cash.
Although Tims has attracted a lot of investment from star institutions as soon as it entered China, it has not been able to withstand the cold winter of consumption.
In March 2022, Tims China announced that it had received an additional financing of US$194.5 million. This round of financing was valued at US$1.4 billion. Compared with the valuation of US$1.688 billion when Tims China was just preparing for the SPAC listing in August 2021, A full reduction of nearly 300 million US dollars, or about 1.8 billion yuan.
This also makes Tims China the first domestic consumer unicorn to publicly reduce its valuation in 2022.
Under the situation of increasing losses and lower valuations, Tims China urgently needs to “return blood”. To ensure a smooth listing, Tims China invited Dong (Albert) Li, an experienced chief financial officer.
Li Dong has led the listing work of many companies. He has worked in KPMG and the investment banking department of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He has served as the chief financial officer of Ecovacs, Paige Media, Elite Education and Himalaya. During his tenure, Ecovacs landed in A shares, Elite Education landed in US stocks, and Himalaya also submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
A CFO with rich listing experience is exactly what Tims China needs right now.
According to Tims China’s shareholding structure, before the listing, Tencent directly held 14.9% of the shares, Sequoia held 11.4% of the shares, Tims Hortons held 8.6% of the shares, and Zhongding Capital held 5.7% of the shares.
The SPAC company Silver Crest is mainly operated by Shangda Capital, and Leon Men (Meng Liang), the founding partner of Shangda Capital, holds 20% of the shares. Previously, Shangda Capital was the largest shareholder of education institution Red Yellow Blue, and it also invested in Meituan Dianping and Wumart Supermarket in the past.
In addition, as the largest independent alternative investment management group in Asia, PAG (Pacific Alliance Investment) is also one of the shareholders of Silver Crest, holding 6.9% of the shares. In addition to participating in the listing of Tims China, PAG has also invested in many new tea brands. According to the prospectus submitted by PAG to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in March this year, % Arabica coffee and Nai Xue’s tea are both in PAG’s investment portfolio.
Cross-border coffee is popular, and the scale of the track is approaching 1 trillion
At the key point of listing, Tims China also pulled Sinopec to “fuel”.
On July 28, 2022, Tims China and Sinopec “Gas Station” subsidiary Yijie Coffee strategically cooperated. The two parties will open small Tims coffee shops in some EasyJet coffee stores, develop joint ready-to-drink coffee, and sell them in EasyJet convenience stores nationwide.
Previously, in November 2021, Tims China also strategically cooperated with Metro, the “King of German supermarkets”, to open a smaller Tims Go Jiefeng store in Metro China’s supermarkets, targeting the daily consumer groups in the supermarket.
Cross-border cooperation, on the one hand, allows Tims to penetrate into more diverse consumption scenarios, on the other hand, it can also take advantage of the advantages of gas stations and supermarkets to fully expand in the domestic market.
In addition to gas stations and supermarkets, this year, a large number of “cross-border players” have poured into the coffee track.
In February 2022, China Post announced that the country’s first post office coffee shop officially landed in Xiamen;
In February, Tianjin “Goubuli Baozi” established Goleya Coffee Food (Tianjin) Co., Ltd.;
In April, Li Ning applied for the registration of the “Ning Coffee NING COFFEE” trademark and entered the coffee field across the border.
In May, Huawei applied for the registration of the trademark “One Standard Coffee Absorbs Cosmic Energy”, with the trademark category being catering and accommodation.
These “cross-border collaborators” have inherently rich scene advantages.
According to the China Post News, in December 2021, my country Post has 54,000 business outlets, more than 400,000 postal Tesco stations, and 200,000 village postal stations. Li Ning is not to be outdone. According to the financial report, in 2021, in addition to the international market, Li Ning will have a total of 7,137 sales stores, an increase of 204 compared with 2020. Backed by Sinopec, Yijie Convenience Store has more than 28,000 stores and 200 million members.
In fact, the competition on the coffee track has gradually entered a fever pitch. According to the iiMedia Research report, China’s coffee market has entered a stage of rapid development. In 2021, the market size of China’s coffee industry will reach 381.7 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 485.6 billion yuan in 2022. It is expected that the industry will maintain a growth rate of 27.2%, and the size of China’s coffee market will reach 1 trillion yuan in 2025.
Not only is it actively “cross-border”, but the entire coffee track is actively expanding through store opening + investment.
In March 2022, Manner, an Internet celebrity coffee brand from Shanghai, announced on its official account that “200+ new stores in ten cities across the country will open in three days”. According to statistics from the narrow door dining eye, as of July, Manner stores have expanded to 418, and the store scale is catching up with Tims Coffee.
In April, Shuyishaoxiancao officially invested in the coffee brand DOC Coffee and became the controlling shareholder of DOC Coffee;
In May, the new lemon tea brand “Ningji” entered the coffee market, and the first offline store of the wholly-owned coffee sub-brand “RUU COFFEE” opened in Changsha, Hunan;
In the same month, Luckin Coffee had a total of 6,580 stores, surpassing Starbucks to become the “popular top streamer” in the domestic coffee track.
In June, HEYTEA invested in Minority Coffee with a stake of about 12%. And this is not the first time HEYTEA has participated in a coffee investment project. In July last year, HEYTEA invested in Seesaw Coffee;
In June, NOWWA Coffee, which has already exceeded 1,500 stores, announced the opening of 100 stores.
Even high-end specialty coffee can’t be made. Almost on the same day (July 28) that Tims China announced its strategic cooperation with EasyJet, the world-famous Kyoto Internet celebrity coffee %Arabica announced that %Arabica’s Chinese operator Lucky Ace International (hereinafter referred to as “Fumeng International”) It is seeking a new round of financing at a maximum valuation of $1.2 billion. Fumeng International plans to raise $300 million for the expansion of % Arabica and has already approached potential investors.
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Titanium Media i Dark Horse Investment China Network
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- Tims coffee unicorn to IPO 2022-08-08
- TIMS China Announces Nearly $200 Million in Additional Financing2022-03-10
- Cafe Tim Hortons China completes a new round of financing, Sequoia leads the investment in Tencent to increase its holdings2021-02-26
- Coffee brand Tim Hortons enters Beijing and will have 20 stores in 20202020-07-24
- Foreign media: Ruixing incident investigation law firm also represented Tim Hortons in China financing project2020-05-21
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