Source: China Business Daily
China Business Daily/China Business Network (Reporter Wang Yue) Recently, keywords such as "stock price plummeted", "stop acquisition", "semi-annual report from profit to loss", and "termination of share allotment" were marked on Qianbaidu . This Hong Kong company has become another women's shoe company that is going downhill after Belle and Daphne .
Since June 21, Qianbaidu's stock price has fallen sharply. As of press time, its closing price was HK$0.62, a drop of more than 70% from the closing price of HK$2.43 on June 20. Affected by this, the allotment of new shares with a market value of HK$1.3 billion was terminated.
Previously, Qianbaidu issued an announcement on May 16 stating that in order to supplement working capital and repay asset mergers and acquisitions, it plans to allocate several shares to Wangfujing, Ji Changqun and others. Among them, the allotment shares accounted for approximately 26.48% of Qianbaidu's issued shares on the date of announcement. According to the quotation per share on the day of the agreement, the total market value of these shares is HK$1.331 billion. Wangfujing Group, Chairman of Fengsheng Holdings Ji Changqun, and Zhongbang Financial Holdings Chairman Tao Wen intends to subscribe to allocate shares of no less than HK$120 million, HK$120 million and HK$50 million respectively. Calculated from the median allotment price of HK$2.7, the funds for this allotment reached HK$1.48 billion. Qianbaidu plans to use the funds raised from this allotment as a compensation for the acquisition of the old British department store brand "House of Fraser"; or repay existing bank interest-bearing loans and general working capital.
However, on August 1, Qianbaidu stated that due to the recent sharp decline in the company's shares market price, far below the level of HK$2.4 to HK$3, Qianbaidu and its placing agents believed that the placing matters had become impractical, so they agreed to terminate the placing agreement. After the termination of the share allotment, the acquisition activity ended in a delay and abandonment. In May this year, Qianbaidu reached an agreement with Nanjing Xinjiekou Department Store Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as " Nanjing Xinbai "), a subsidiary of Sanbo Group, to acquire the controlling stake in House of Fraser from the latter. Qianbaidu's acquisition is divided into two parts, acquiring 34% of House of Fraser's equity for 71.6 million pounds, and then subscribed to the new shares issued by House of Fraser for 70 million pounds, obtaining a total of 51% of the equity. In the announcement on July 26, Qianbaidu pointed out that it would delay the acquisition of House of Fraser, mainly because the latter's restructuring plan was sued by several creditors. Therefore, the company and various professional consultants need more time to implement the restructuring plan and the target company's financial information, and then postpone the transaction.
Subsequently, on August 3, Nanjing Xinbai issued an announcement that due to the decline in Qianbaidu's stock price, the company believes that there is significant uncertainty in continuing to promote this major asset restructuring at this stage. In order to safeguard the interests of all shareholders and the company, after careful research by all parties in the restructuring, it is planned to terminate the major asset restructuring matters with Qianbaidu. At this point, Qianbaidu’s acquisition plan failed.
As the saying goes, "Damage never comes singularly". After Qianbaidu experienced delays in acquisitions, cessation and termination of share allotment, the company's performance also changed, and Qianbaidu turned from profit to loss. The semi-annual report forecast released by Qianbaidu on August 1 shows that the company's performance in the first half of 2018 is expected to turn from profit to loss, and is expected to lose RMB 20 million in the first half of this year. Qianbaidu mentioned in the announcement that the net loss was mainly attributed to the rising financial costs of the Group, including the group's early redemption of several convertible bonds and notes and the appreciation of the US dollar against the RMB.
Although the above reasons are reasonable, it has become an inevitable fact that Qianbaidu's performance has declined. Currently, most of the women's shoes industry is in a state of recession, and various companies are constantly transforming or exploring new development ideas, but the effect is not very obvious and most of them cannot make profits. Belle has delisted and Daphne has suffered losses for years, while Qianbaidu has been operating and managing poorly recently, and various problems have frequently arisen. As of press time, Qianbaidu has not responded to the above issues.
