The new coach Pu Jizhou, a veteran of the wine industry, will usher in a new period of change.
Text: Daily Financial Report Lv Mingxia.
Towards the end of the year, Shede Liquor (600702SH) announced a new round of management changes.
On December 15, Shede Liquor issued an announcement on senior management adjustment and other related matters, and Ni Qiang stepped down as chairman of the board of directors and chairman of the strategy committee of the board of directors and continued to serve as a directorPu Jizhou will serve as the chairman of the board of directors and the chairman of the strategy committee of the board of directors, responsible for the overall governance of the companyWu Yifei is the co-chairman, and Tang Hui is the president.
What new action ideas will the new team of Shede Liquor Industry have?What kind of change period will the new coach Pu Jizhou usher in when he takes office?
Turbulent management
Pu Jizhou is a veteran of Shede and has been in the wine industry for more than 30 years. He has successively served as the director of the first and fourth branches of Shede Liquor, the deputy director of the administrative center, the general manager of Jilin Tuopai Agricultural Products Development Company, the manager of Tuopai Thermal Power Company, and the director of Sichuan Tuopai Shede Group, with solid experience in production and marketing management.
At the turbulent time of the transition from the SkyOcean era to the Fosun era, it was the veteran Shede led by Pu Jizhou who came to power to maintain stability.
On June 30, 2016, SkyOcean Holdings officially became the owner of Tuopai Holdings through the acquisition of 88% of the high-leverage premium, ending the road of mixed reform that had lasted for more than ten years.
Since SkyOcean Holdings took over Tuopai Shede, there has been constant turmoil within it. On July 5 of that year, Tuopai Shede issued an announcement that the company's former senior management, including the then chairman Li Jiashun, resigned collectively and was subjected to a "big purge".
On July 6, 2016, the board of directors of Tuopai Shede Liquor nominated Zhou Zheng, Liu Li, Pu Jizhou, Yang Lei, Xie Zuo, Xu Jingyong, Chen Gang and Zhang Sheng as candidates for additional directors of the eighth board of directors of the company, and appointed Liu Li as general manager and Zhang Shuping as executive deputy general manager.
Liu Li, an executive of the "SkyOcean Department", was appointed as the chairman of Shede Liquor, and then started a drastic reform of Shede Liquor. In December 2017, the listed company Tuopai Shede also changed its name to Shede Liquor. At the same time, Shede Liquor has greatly reduced its products, cut thousands of self-brands, and gradually moved closer to the mid-to-high-end product structure, abandoning low-end products.
In August 2020, Shede Liquor revealed that its major shareholder, SkyOcean Holdings, had illegally occupied a huge amount of funds of listed companies, and as a result, Shede Liquor was placed under other risk warnings by the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
At the end of 2020, after Yuyuan Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Fosun Group, acquired a 70% stake in Shede Liquor, Shede Liquor changed hands to Fosun. At the beginning of 2023, Fosun appointed Ni Qiang to join Shede Liquor as the chairman of the board of directors, replacing Zhang Shuping.
In addition to Ni Qiang, among the board members of Shede, except for Pu Jizhou, who is a veteran of Shede, the other three directors are all from Yuyuan Shares. In addition, Zou Qingli, vice president and chief financial officer, and Luo Chao, vice president, are also from Fosun.
In January this year, Shede Liquor elected Ni Qiang, executive president of Yuyuan Co., Ltd., an executive of Fosun, as the new chairman of Shede Liquor, and Pu Jizhou as the company's co-chairman.
It can be said that the internal undercurrent of Shede Liquor is also surging, and it is experiencing an important stage of rights change and is ushering in a new period of change.
In the stock era, whether Shede can continue the previous upward momentum is a test of the ability of the new management. Compared with the Ni Qiang era, the situation faced by Pu Jizhou is not easy.
The performance and stock price are both trapped, can they get out of the path dependence?
Shede Liquor's performance growth has visibly slowed down. In 2022, Shede Liquor has put forward the goal of "10 billion revenue in three years". According to the current performance, it is still a certain distance from the title of a wine company with an annual revenue of 10 billion.
On October 25, Shede Liquor disclosed its results: revenue of 52 in the first three quarters of 20234.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1362%；Net profit attributable to the parent company 129.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 793%。Among them, the revenue in the third quarter was 171.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 786%, net profit 37.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 301%。
It is not difficult to see that the growth rate of revenue and net profit in the third quarter of this year has slowed down: compared with the first half of the year, the revenue and net profit growth are double digits, which has lowered the average growth rate in the first three quarters, especially the net profit has dropped directly to single digits.
At a time when the Matthew effect in the industry is gradually intensifying, the revenue growth rate of Shede Liquor is not optimistic. This undoubtedly sounded the alarm bell for Shede Liquor Industry to catch up with the lack of strength. With such a revenue growth rate, there is still a question mark over whether Shede Liquor can achieve the revenue target of 10 billion yuan in 2024.
With the slowdown in performance growth, the share price of Shede Liquor continued to fall. Or in order to boost the stock price, Shede Liquor has successively thrown out share repurchase plans, but the effect is not obvious. As of December 22**, the share price of Shede Liquor closed at 8795 yuan shares, compared with the historical high has been "cut in half".
The road to high-end is difficult to follow, and the effect of the old wine strategy is limited
As one of the "Six Golden Flowers of Sichuan Liquor", Shede Liquor is the third listed company in the liquor industry, with two liquor brands, "Tuopai" and "Shede". In 2019, Shede Liquor put forward the strategy of old liquor and launched the brand slogan of "Shede Liquor, every bottle is an old liquor".
Shede Liquor holds two liquor brands, "Shede" and "Tuopai". Among them, Shede is positioned as a mid-to-high-end liquor, while Tuopai is a low-end and affordable liquor. Shede Liquor's "Tianzi Hu", "Swallow Zhihu", "Shang Shufang" and other series of high-end liquors are priced at more than 1,000 yuan.
Judging from the sales data of Shede Liquor this year, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the "old liquor strategy" of Shede Liquor.
In the first three quarters of 2023, the sales revenue of high-end liquor in Shede Liquor Industry increased by only 1062%, far lower than the growth rate of ordinary wine sales revenue of 2294%。
It can be seen that the growth rate of sales revenue of ordinary liquor in Shede Liquor Industry is more than twice the growth rate of medium and high-end liquor.
At present, in the past two years, due to the environmental impact of the industry, the consumption structure of residents has begun to adjust. However, in the long run, high-end transformation and upgrading is the inevitable way. Shede Liquor has gone the opposite way and silently returned to the old way to promote ordinary wine, but it is not known what kind of considerations are behind it.
However, in the high-end section of more than 1,000 yuan, compared with the first-echelon liquor companies such as Kweichow Moutai and Wuliangye, the competitiveness of Shede Liquor is not obvious. Therefore, the road to compete for the market share of high-end liquor is even more difficult.
In the third quarter of 2023, the gross profit margin of Shede Liquor was 7528%, down 39%；The net profit margin was 2474%, down 579%。
There is no shortage of players in the sub-high-end market, and national wine companies and regional strong wine companies are squeezing into this market, and the competition is gradually fierce. In the middle and low stage, liquor companies are facing an increasingly fierce battle, which will further squeeze the profit margins of the liquor industry.
At present, Shede Liquor needs to go all out to lay a good foundation for the development of the new year. With the completion of a new round of management adjustment of Shede Liquor, it is expected that Shede Liquor will be able to deliver a satisfactory answer to the capital market in 2024.