In recent years, the “fruit chain” enterprises have been highly popular in the capital market, and their cooperation with Apple has achieved a number of “100 billion white horse shares”, including Goertek Inc(002241) (002241. SZ), Lens Technology Co.Ltd(300433) (300433. SZ). As an enterprise “raised” by apple, Zhili’s impact on the gem has attracted much attention.
On December 29, smart cube responded to the third round of regulatory inquiries. It is worth noting that in the three rounds of inquiries, regulators asked about the details of the cooperation between zhicube and apple, including pricing, cooperation sustainability and so on; In addition, the company’s fund management has also attracted attention. The company has repeatedly lent large sums of money to its employees, and paid large dividends for two consecutive years in 2019 and 2020, so the actual controller benefited more than 100 million. In that case, why does smart cube plan to use 180 million yuan of the raised funds to supplement liquidity?
revenue is highly dependent on Apple’s bargaining power
Smart cube belongs to the high-end equipment manufacturing industry. Its core business is the business of automatic test equipment and automatic assembly equipment. It is mainly used in consumer electronics and other fields. In the past few years, Apple has always been the largest customer of smart cube.
According to the prospectus, in the first half of 2018-2021, zhicube’s direct sales revenue to Apple was 216 million yuan, 92.9241 million yuan, 123 million yuan and 138 million yuan respectively, accounting for 75.58%, 32.94%, 34.93% and 51.84% of the current revenue respectively.
A person from an intelligent testing company told reporters: “since intelligent testing is customized products and there is no standard product, it is very important for the company to \’hold the thigh\’. However, if it is too deeply bound with a company, there will be great hidden dangers.”
As we all know, in 2020 Ofilm Group Co.Ltd(002456) (002456. SZ) was kicked out of the “fruit chain”, resulting in a sharp drop in its performance, a discount in its share price, and even a decline in the share price of a group of “fruit chain” enterprises that are highly dependent on apple. In fact, Apple’s contribution to the total revenue of Ofilm Group Co.Ltd(002456) 2019 is about 22.51%, much lower than that of smart cube.
After 2018, Apple’s contribution to smart cube continued to decrease, but it does not seem to solve the “big customer dependence”. According to the prospectus, the sales revenue of smart cube to Apple decreased from 216 million yuan in 2018 to 92.9241 million yuan in 2019, while the sales amount through designated Luxshare Precision Industry Co.Ltd(002475) (002475. SZ), Zhishen technology and other intelligent device manufacturers increased from 2005.33 million yuan to 120.9923 million yuan in the same period. The company said that “it is mainly affected by the specific procurement execution strategy of end customer apple in each year.”
In addition to apple and Tencent, zhicube’s top five customers are Goertek Inc(002241) and Hon Hai group, all of which are large “fruit chain”. According to the prospectus, from 2018 to the first half of 2021, Zhili’s sales to the top five customers accounted for 90.71%, 86.86%, 89.49% and 84.95% respectively, of which the direct and indirect order revenue to Apple accounted for 82.61%, 75.83%, 68.82% and 74.51% respectively.
For the strong dependence on the “fruit chain”, zhicube also said in the prospectus: “if Apple cancels the order due to the adjustment of production plan and according to the no responsibility cancellation clause, the company may have the possibility that the amount of compensation paid by Apple cannot cover the paid costs, resulting in project losses, which will have a significant adverse impact on the company’s operating performance.”
In fact, excessive dependence has affected the bargaining power of smart cube and apple. According to the prospectus, the gross profit margin of zhicube’s sales to apple is generally lower than that of other “fruit chain” companies; From 2019 to the first half of 2021, the gross profit margin of optical testing equipment was 51.66%, 46.92% and 40.65% respectively, decreasing year by year.
In response to the inquiry, the company also said frankly: “in each year, the gross profit margin of Apple’s direct procurement and designated \’fruit chain\’ customer procurement is mainly affected by the difference of product structure and pricing strategy, which is generally lower than that of \’fruit chain\’ customer independent procurement.”
the actual controller has continuously paid large dividends
Despite the concerns brought by the identity of “fruit chain”, the lax internal control of smart cube itself has also attracted many questions.
According to the inquiry reply, at the beginning of 2020, Qiu Peng, Guan Wei and Huang Jianfeng, the three founders of the company, signed the agreement on concerted action, became the persons acting in concert, and all held senior management positions of the company. After several share reform and capital increase, the above three persons directly hold 88.347% of the shares of zhicube and 4.95% of the shares of zhicube through Qun Zhifang Li, that is, the three persons directly and indirectly hold 93.30% of the shares of zhicube.
A legal person told reporters, “the large shareholding ratio of the actual controller of a company often shows two points. The first is that the company may have too much \’voice\’ of the actual controller, and the second is that the company has not introduced too many investors before.”
In fact, the problems caused by the excessive “discourse power” of the actual controller have begun to appear.
First of all, the three major shareholders gave themselves “big bonuses”. According to the inquiry reply, zhicube implemented cash dividends of 100 million yuan and 30 million yuan in 2019 and 2020 respectively, while the actual controllers Qiu Peng, Guan Wei and Huang Jianfeng obtained a total of 121 million yuan from the issuer and employee stock ownership platform according to their shareholding ratio. The company said that the main purpose of the funds is three people’s financial investment, housing purchase, house purchase repayment, etc.
The above legal person told reporters, “large dividends often mean that there is no lack of money, and the purpose of IPO itself is to raise funds.” It is worth noting that among the 600 million yuan expected to be raised by the company, 180 million yuan is said to be used as a supplementary working capital project.
In addition, the three actual controllers also borrowed money from the company for many times. According to the prospectus, in 2018, Huang Jianfeng borrowed 3 million yuan from the company for personal house purchase. Because the borrowing time was close to one year and was relatively long, zhicube charged him a capital occupation fee at the one-year bank loan interest rate of 4.35%; Huang Jianfeng has repaid the aforesaid loan at the end of the year and paid the fund occupation fee of 120800 yuan. In the same year, Guan Wei borrowed 2.497 million yuan from the company due to personal temporary capital turnover needs, and all of them were returned at the end of the year. Due to the short borrowing time, the issuer did not charge the capital occupation fee.
The above legal person told reporters, “frequent occupation of funds is more sensitive, indicating that the company’s internal control was weak before the share reform.”
For the company’s “big customer dependence” and the high voice of the actual controller, the reporter has sent an interview letter to the company, but as of press time, no reply has been received. The financial associated press will continue to pay attention to the next trend of zhicube IPO.
(source: financial Associated Press)
