The adoption of a cow in an innovative dairy sales model failed in the A-share IPO.
On February 6, the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced that due to the adoption of a cow holding group shares, hereinafter referred to as "adopt a cow"), the sponsor withdrew its sponsorship, and in accordance with the relevant regulations, the Shanghai Stock Exchange terminated its issuance and listing review.
Selling expenses continue to grow.
Adopt-a-Cow is mainly engaged in the R&D, production and sales of dairy products under the "Adopt-a-Cow" brand, including a variety of styles of pure milk, yogurt, milk powder, cheese and other dairy products and raw milk. Based on the establishment of its own high-quality milk source, the company has gradually expanded and deepened to its own brand operation and its own production base, forming an integrated dairy product management system combining online sales and offline sales.
*Derived from the Company's prospectus.
As of the end of June 2022, Adopt-a-Cow has successively established 7 self-owned and joint-operation modern dairy farms and 1 dairy digital and intelligent chemical plant in Hebei, Heilongjiang, Shandong and other places, with a total of more than 60,000 dairy cows, effectively ensuring the stability of high-quality milk sources**.
In terms of procurement mode, the raw materials required to adopt a cow mainly include various packaging materials, raw milk, corn feed, production accessories and soybean meal feed. Among them, the company's raw milk is mainly used in self-owned and associated farms, and the proportion of milk source supply has increased to 88 from January to June 202217%, which is at a high level in the industry, and some of them are purchased from external cooperative milk sources such as Australasia Group and Bright Dairy.
In terms of production mode, at the beginning of the reporting period, adopting a cow will focus on the construction of milk sources for large-scale pastures and the strengthening and upgrading of its own brand. Since the second half of 2020, with the completion and operation of the company's Shandong production base, the company has gradually formed a production model based on independent production and supplemented by outsourcing processing.
During the reporting period, the operating income of adopting a cow was mainly the main business income, that is, the sales of dairy products and raw milk, accounting for more than 95%. At the same time, the company mainly focuses on online sales channels and actively expands offline sales channels, and the proportion of sales revenue from online channels in each period remains above 60%.
In terms of performance, from 2019 to the first half of 2022, the revenue of adopting a cow was 86.5 billion yuan, 16500 million yuan, 256.6 billion and 15$9.7 billion; The net profit was 10.8 billion yuan, 14.5 billion yuan, 1400 million yuan and 6814310,000 yuan.
It is worth noting that the cost of adopting a cow continues to grow. From 2019 to the first half of 2022, the proportion of online sales revenue of adopting a cow to the main business income was ., respectively67% and 7719%。
At the same time, the sales expenses of adopting a cow from 2019 to the first half of 2022 were 19.4 billion yuan, 30.3 billion yuan, 48.3 billion and 35.2 billion yuan, and the sales expense ratio was .82% and 2202%, the amount of sales expenses increased rapidly. Adopt-a-cow said that the sales expenses are mainly used for product sales and brand marketing promotion on e-commerce platforms. As the increase in online shopping users tends to stabilize, the competition among merchants on major e-commerce platforms has become increasingly fierce, and the marginal cost of customer acquisition has increased.
Multiple rounds of financing have been completed.
Innovative marketing techniques are the magic weapon for the rapid rise of adopting a cow. It only took three years to adopt a cow to achieve the number of Tmall fans from 0 to 10 million. Adopt-a-Cow said on its official WeChat account that it is not a company that sells milk, but a company that raises cows for users, and encourages consumers to start the journey of adopting a cow.
In fact, "Adopt a Cow" does not allow consumers to "adopt" a cow in person, but provides consumers with three modes: cloud adoption, joint adoption and real-name adoption, and consumers can experience the adoption model through cloud cattle mini games and cattle raising partner models.
Since its establishment, adopting a cow has attracted investment from a number of institutions. According to the prospectus, in April 2021, the adoption of a cow A round of financing, KKR, DCP (DCP Capital) and other well-known institutions entered the market, and the post-investment valuation of this round reached 480.8 billion yuan.
In December 2021, the B round of financing for adopting a cow received investment from 9 institutions under Meituan, including Meituan Dragon Ball and Gu Ming, and old shareholders such as DCP and KKR continued to increase their weight. The amount of this round of financing amounted to 15600 million yuan, reaching 100 million after investment6.4 billion yuan.
Looking back on its listing process, as early as July 2022, the adoption of a cow pre-disclosure prospectus was intended to be listed on the main board of Shanghai, and then in the feedback released by the China Securities Regulatory Commission on its listing application, the regulatory authorities raised 48 questions, and the regulators raised a series of 48 questions on the adoption of a milk source, huge sales expenses, whether the business model involves pyramid schemes, whether it involves illegal fundraising, etc.
After the launch of the full registration system, the adoption of a cow IPO was transferred and accepted in February 2023, but as of the withdrawal of the IPO, the adoption of a cow has not been reviewed and questioned by the exchange.
In this IPO, the adoption of a cow plan to raise 185.1 billion yuan, of which, 97.7 billion yuan for the construction project of Haibozhige Smart Ranch; 5.200 million yuan for brand building, marketing and promotion projects; 5440.290,000 yuan for information system upgrading and transformation projects; Supplementary operating capital of 300 million yuan.
Editor-in-charge: Peng Bo.
Proofreading: Li**.