Haichang Ocean Park, in the seven years after its listing in 2014, except for orca riots, is unknown in the capital market, and its stock price hovers below 3 yuan all the year round.In the past year, the share price has risen tenfold.

In this epidemic, the share prices of peers, whether they are Huaqiang Fangte, where Xiong Da Xiong er lives, or the overseas Chinese Town, a central enterprise, or Songcheng Performing Arts, which focuses on performances, have been falling all the way, and it seems that Haichang Ocean Park is the only one standing at the top of the tide in the impact of this epidemic.

In July last year, Weibo Corp spread the news that China's first Altman-themed park may be settled in Shanghai Haichang Park.

It was this news that sounded the charge of this round of rise. In July this year, the Altman park officially opened.

What's the difference between a dolphin show and Altman? It's not just because Altman can avoid the ethical controversy caused by animal performances. The core point is that Haichang's valuation logic has changed.

01 Two forms of paradise

According to the type, paradise can be divided intoAmusement Park和Theme ParkTwo forms. The key to the difference is whether or not there is an IP.

Universal Studios seven major theme areas five are based on the animation film IP construction, and Walt Disney Company is even more unique, each theme park has Walt Disney Company's own IP. By contrast, the main selling point of an amusement park is not IP, but a variety of wonders or amusement facilities. For example, the window of the World and thousands of Miao villages are characterized by geography, and the Happy Valley, which relies on roller coasters and other amusement devices.

Haichang Park, which relies on marine animal performances, belongs to an amusement park, while Altman has become a theme park.

The profitability of the two parks is not at all at the same level.

Theme parks rely on IP to make their followers make pilgrimages here again and again, and the amusement park project looks exciting, but visitors are filled with freshness as long as they try it once and will not do it again.

At the end of 2021, there were 3000 parks in China, but most of them were at a loss, and the total revenue and profit that can be made may be less than half that of Walt Disney Company in Shanghai or Universal Studios in Beijing.

Operators of a large number of parks in China have long understood this truth, but there is no successful IP in China.

China's first Ocean Park was built in 2002 (the operator behind it is Haichang). At this stage, the domestic cultural development is far less mature than that of foreign countries. In the past 10 years, the domestic screen has long been occupied by Hollywood and Japanese two-dimensional animation. Domestic film and television IP is out of the question.

Let the dolphin jump circle is not to show skills, but without IP, can only make painstaking efforts to train the helpless move.

Compared with the theme park, the amusement park faces many limitations: thousands of Miao villages can only take root in the southwest of the motherland, Happy Valley needs to invest a lot of capital in the early stage, and has to live like real estate by building buildings around and selling houses, while whether Haichang Park can expand depends on how much marine life it has on its own.

In order to raise more marine life and open more amusement parks, Haichang had to borrow heavily and even built a series of breeding centers in its own park. With the construction of a park in Zhengzhou in 2017, the opening of Shanghai Ocean Park in 2018 and the opening of Sanya never Sleepless City in 2019, Haichang's debt is also soaring.

From 2014 to 2020, the company's asset-liability ratio continued to rise, and its financial expenses tripled. The gross margin itself is small, and the cost squeeze is declining both in terms of profitability and the company's margin of safety.

Under the epidemic in 2020, ticket revenue may decline, but the interest on debt is not allowed to be reduced at all. If you continue to operate in this way, there may be problems, and the stock price will naturally lie on the ground for a long time.

In the domestic paradise, on the contrary, the theme park built by Huaqiang Fangte has developed well after the prosperity of the "bear haunted" series. It has also started a "bear haunting town" in Linhai, Zhejiang Province-- this is to learn from Walt Disney Company.

From marine animals to Altman, it marks the turn of Haichang Ocean Park from "amusement park" to "theme park". This turn has also opened the ceiling of the imagination of valuation, and people will naturally believe that there is light.

02 IP once and for all

About Walt Disney Company, one of the news repeatedly mentioned this year is that the copyright of Mickey Mouse is about to expire. In fact, in order to preserve the image of Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney Company has lobbied US government officials twice in the past, thus extending the copyright. The copyright extension Act even has a separate name-the Mickey Mouse clause.

Behind Walt Disney Company's racking his brains, it is enough to show the importance he attaches to IP. In paradise, the importance of IP is also visible to the naked eye.

First of all, compared with amusement parks, theme parks can earn high profits at a premium through IP.

Especially in the theme park, affected by the atmosphere, the probability of secondary consumption is very high, and this kind of secondary consumption is one of the main sources of profit of the theme park.

According to the financial report released by Walt Disney Company in Tokyo, the gross profit margin of merchandise sales and catering consumption in Erxiaozhong is close to 60%, while the overall gross profit margin of Walt Disney Company Paradise is about 40%, which translates to no gross profit margin for ticket revenue.

There is basically no money to be made by relying on tickets alone, but there is no good IP in domestic parks, and tourists lack the motivation to spend passionately in the park, resulting in ticket revenue.

Secondly, high-quality IP can indirectly prolong the life cycle of theme parks.

Universal Studios in Japan opened in 2001, while Tokyo's Walt Disney Company Park opened about 20 years earlier, but visitors can still beat Universal Studios at the beginning of the 21st century. The reason is that Walt Disney Company has IP such as Mickey Mouse, Marvel and Story, which are much more attractive than Global.

Universal, on the other hand, saved face only in 2014 with the introduction of Harry Potter. Passenger traffic rose by 20% in 2015, surpassing Tokyo Walt Disney Company Ocean Park and Tokyo Walt Disney Company Park in 2017.

Universal Studios moved the IP to Universal Studios in Beijing after the success of Harry Potter in Japan. Universal Studios quickly climbed to the top of Weibo Corp's hot search list after its opening. After all, Rowling, a domestic JK, also has a lot of fans.

In addition, due to the wider distribution of the audience, high-quality IP can be grafted and replicated and expand faster.A typical example is Walt Disney Company's theme park, which runs all over the world from the United States to China.

But good IP like Harry Potter and Mickey Mouse belong to metaphysics, and Universal Studios and Walt Disney Company have basically the same attitude.As long as I meet it, I will buy it directly at a high price.

The mystery of Haichang this time is that someone sent IP to the door.

03 Olius, the broker

Whether it is Walt Disney Company or Universal Studios, media industry leaders stand behind every theme park, providing continuous IP support for the development of the theme park. After Haichang brought out Altman, Orex, one of the arms dealers behind Haichang, also gradually surfaced.

Who is Orex?

To put it simply, Orix is an integrated financial services company founded in Japan, but Orix is not limited to financial leasing in China, including film and television entertainment. Orix has set up a subsidiary in Hong Kong, Ouhua Entertainment. It did not open a subsidiary in Shanghai until 2020 and officially entered the mainland.

Ouhua Culture and Entertainment only does a few small things in China--Introduce Japanese anime movies to China for release.

In 2015, Ouhua met Doraemon's copyright owner through Haichang Park. On May 28 of the same year, the Ohua team successfully helped the release of the blockbuster film Doraemon: accompany me in domestic theaters, grossing 530 million yuan at the box office, surpassing the domestic box office.

This successful cooperation led Japanese copyright owners and filmmakers to reach a cooperation with Ohua. Later, the famous Detective Conan series, "Crayon Xiaoxin: the Great assault of the Dream World" and "Sword Magic: sequence struggle" were released in China one after another. in addition to one-way export of Japanese culture, Ouhua also introduced domestic "Flying Life" and "Chinatown investigation" to Japan.

The introduction of Altman into Haichang Park is just the beginning.

For Haichang, the era of relying on rare marine creatures to attract tourists may pass, and Haichang may work hard on film and television IP like Walt Disney Company and Universal Studios in the future. If Altman is introduced successfully, Doraemon, famous Detective Conan, Silver Soul and a series of Japanese IP brought by Ouhua will be the Haichang platform.

Japanese IP also belongs to the more powerful IP.

Take Altman, for example, the sales of Altman image cards launched in China in 2020 has reached 41.68 million yuan.[8]Some parents spent 2 million yuan to meet their children's complete collection of Ottomanka cards. In foreign countries, Japan's Bandai Namenggong's "Alden Ring" was directly exported to Europe, winning the first place in the European market. In terms of playing IP, Japan, Europe and the United States can be said to be between Bozhong, especially on the main battlefield of East Asia.

As a result, Orix matched Haichang, upgrading the creatures of Haichang Park to Japanese animation IP, catching up with Walt Disney Company and Universal Studios. A meal of operation, leading the company in the capital market, may not be surprising.

One unsolved problem isWhy did Orix cooperate with Haichang?

The real controller of Haichang Park is qu Naijie, and qu Naijie's son qu Cheng did not directly participate in the operation of the family business after graduation, but went to Orex. He joined the family business only after the Japanese company left, and Orix is now the second-largest shareholder in Haichang Park.

Walking around, it turns out that it is still the classic taste of "acquaintance introduction".