In recent years, there have been several sensational food safety-related incidents in China.
For example, poisoned milk powder in 2008, gutter oil in 2010, poisonous bird's nest in 2011, etc., these incidents have caused a sensation across the country and have since changed the development of the industry.
Recently, the news that Yanzhiwu is about to be listed in Hong Kong has attracted more attention from the industry.
Not only because it will win the name of "the first share of bird's nest", but also because it is also the protagonist of the "poisonous bird's nest" incident.
You must know that the "poisonous bird's nest" incident that year caused the number of stores in Yanzhiwu to plummet from more than 500 to more than 100;The sales scale of China's bird's nest industry also fell off a cliff from 6.5 billion yuan in 2021 to 2.2 billion yuan in 2012.
And now, the House of Swallows has made a comeback, which is quite a bit of nirvana rebirth;However, through the corporate prospectus, it has also lifted the "fig leaf" of the bird's nest industry.
The story of Yanzhiwu starts with a math teacher who went to the sea to start a business.
In 1992, Huang Jian, who was originally working in a middle school in Fujian, resigned and went to Xiamen. A year later, Huang Jian quit his job again to study in Singapore, where he was taking classes and working in health care sales.
At that time, China's economy was developing rapidly, and Huang Jian also had the idea of returning to China to start a businessSo he cut into the bird's nest track and went to Indonesia, the origin of bird's nest.
At the end of 1997, after the inspection in Indonesia, Huang Jian returned to China to create Xiamen Shuangdanma Industrial Development, which is the predecessor of Yanzhiwu.
At that time, the sales model was relatively simple, Huang Jian imported dried bird's nest goods from Indonesia, and then sold them through local shopping malls and pharmacies in Xiamen.
In 2002, in order to open up a larger market, Huang Jian introduced a franchise business model, opened the first specialty store, and focused on the bird's nest service of "order, eat, stew, and delivery", which slowly opened up the brand awareness.
In 2011, Yanzhiwu, which seemed to be going well, began to plan to go public in Hong Kong, but it was also in the same year that Yanzhiwu ushered in the blow of the "poisonous bird's nest" incident.
According to public reports, in July 2011, some consumers reported that after eating Yanzhiwu's "special blood bird's nest", they experienced symptoms such as fever, headache, and nausea. After testing, it was found that the nitrite content in Yanzhiwu's blood bird's nest products exceeded the highest national mandatory standard by 33 times.
After this incident, the regulatory authorities rectified the entire industry, and the import of bird's nest from Malaysia was temporarily suspended.
Naturally, Yanzhiwu also suffered a heavy blow, with a large number of stores forced to close, corporate cash flow tightened, and listing plans also stranded.
But fortunately, as the popularity of "poisonous bird's nest" subsided, Yanzhiwu returned to the market with products such as "instant bowled bird's nest".
Since 2019, Yanzhiwu has started its long and bumpy road to listing.
In 2019, Yanzhiwu went to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange again, and then failed. At the end of 2021, Yanzhiwu disclosed its prospectus and prepared to be listed on the main board of the Shanghai Stock ExchangeHowever, in September 2022, Yanzhiwu took the initiative to withdraw the application materials. In November 2022, Yanzhiwu restarted its A-share listing plan, but eventually withdrew its listing application.
It is worth mentioning that when Yanzhiwu planned to list A-shares, the China Securities Regulatory Commission also clearly mentioned the "poisonous bird's nest" incident and expressed great doubts about the product level of Yanzhiwu.
In June 2023, Yanzhiwu submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange again, and passed the hearing on November 19. Yanzhiwu, which has hit the IPO five times, has finally waited for a result.
Going back to the bird's nest business itself, it seems to be profitable but it doesn't seem to be that profitable.
In terms of revenue, the prospectus of Yanzhiwu shows that from 2020 to 2022 and in the first five months of 2023, the company's revenue will be 130.1 billion yuan, 150.7 billion yuan, 17300 million yuan, 7$8.3 billion.
And the bird's nest industry is profitable because it is indeed a track with a high gross profit margin.
According to the prospectus, from 2020 to 2022 and in the first five months of 2023, the gross profit margin of Yanzhiwu's main business will be. 9% 。
From the perspective of the gross profit margin of each product, the star product of Yanzhiwu "Wanyan" is also the product with the highest gross profit margin.
The data shows that from 2020 to 2022 and in the first five months of 2023, the gross profit margin of "Wanyan" is. 4%。
It can be seen that the gross profit margin of "Wanyan" has exceeded 60%, and it is still increasing year by year.
*: Prospectus.
Specific to the selling price, e-commerce data shows that the original price is 3599 yuan box, and the price after the event is 2839 yuan box.
The size of a box of this product is 10 bowls, that is to say, according to the discount**, the price of each bowl of the "bowl swallow" product of Yanzhiwu is 283$9.
*: Tmall. However, the embarrassing thing is that the price is expensive, and the gross profit margin of Yanzhiwu is not very high.
According to the prospectus, from 2020 to 2022 and in the first five months of 2022, the net profit attributable to the parent of Yanzhiwu was 12.3 billion yuan, 17.2 billion yuan, 2$0.6 billion and $100 million.
In other words, for Yanzhiwu, the head bird's nest company, there is only one or two hundred million yuan per year.
Behind this, it is the company's huge sales expenses that have dragged down profits.
According to the prospectus, from 2020 to 2022, the sales and distribution expenses of Yanzhiwu will be 31.8 billion yuan, 39.9 billion yuan, 50.4 billion yuan;In the huge sales expenses, the bulk of the expenditure is mainly spent on advertising expenses, of which advertising and promotion expenses are 23.6 billion yuan, 2$6.9 billion and $32.6 billion yuan, accounting for . 8%。
In other words, Yanzhiwu has spent more than 800 million yuan on advertising expenses alone in the past three years, which is nearly twice its cumulative net profit in three yearsLooking at recent years, Yanzhiwu has indeed not stopped in terms of celebrity endorsements and variety show sponsorship.
Therefore, on the one hand, performance needs to be driven by marketing, and on the other hand, huge marketing continues to eat up profits;This made Yanzhiwu's business fall into the embarrassing situation of making money but not so profitable.
Back to the R&D level of products, from 2020 to 2022 and in the first 5 months of 2023, the R&D expenses of Yanzhiwu are only 176790,000 yuan, 189820,000 yuan, 243200,000 yuan and 9.6 million yuan, accounting for only 9.6 million yuan of total operating income. 4% and 12%, which is also in stark contrast to the huge marketing investment.
It is worth mentioning that during the impact of Yanzhiwu on A-shares, the China Securities Regulatory Commission also asked Yanzhiwu to further explain whether the business-driven model and competitive strategy supported the performance by reducing the unit price of the product and a large number of advertising and marketing.
Regarding bird's nest, there is also an ultimate soul torture, that is, is bird's nest an IQ tax?
After all, there has always been controversy in this regard, and if the nutritional value of bird's nest is falsified, it will undoubtedly be a heavy blow to the bird's nest house and the entire bird's nest industry.
For the nutritional value of bird's nest, the main components of bird's nest are water, lipids, sialic acid, protein, amino acids, carbohydrates, etc.
However, public information shows that these nutrients contained in bird's nest are found in many foods, and the "quality" of some ordinary foods is higher than that of bird's nests.
For example, taking protein as an example, Ruan Guangfeng, a member of the expert committee of the China Internet Joint Rumor Refutation Platform, once said that the protein contained in bird's nest is mainly collagen, which is an incomplete protein and lacks the essential amino acid (tryptophan) required by the human body.
In addition, the nutritional value of sialic acid contained in bird's nest is also praised by merchants.
Sialic acid (sialic acid) is also known as bird's nest acid, but the authority also pointed out that sialic acid is not only found in bird's nest, but also widely existed in people and animals.
Dr. Lilac, a health science popularization platform under Lilac Garden, has also publicly stated that if you just pursue taste, it is nothing to eat bird's nest, but if you want to pursue some special effects, it may have no effect except for appearing rich.
To sum up, it probably means that bird's nest has a certain nutritional value, but there are also more cost-effective alternatives.
From the perspective of the overall environment, the scale of China's bird's nest market has grown for 9 consecutive years, reaching a scale of 40 billion yuan in 2020, but in 2021, the size of the bird's nest market began to decline to 3785.4 billion yuan, an increase of 413 in 20220.7 billion yuan.
It can be seen that the whole market is still small in scale and uncertainAnd the voices of doubts about bird's nest will continue to accompany the long-term development of this "first stock of bird's nest".
Yanzhiwu has been brave in the capital market for many years, but its business shortcomings have always been difficult to hide.
On the one hand, huge marketing devours profits, on the other hand, the industry's natural anti-risk ability is weak, coupled with food safety and other related problems, which may have laid a thunder for the subsequent development of Yanzhiwu.