Financial Services Association, January 30 (Reporter Chen Kang) At the end of last year, Yonghui Supermarket (601933.SH) sold assets twice within a month, quite a bit like “hoarding food for the winter.” This evening, Yonghui released the 2023 performance forecast, showing that the company's “winter” is not over yet. Net profit for 2023 was -1.34 billion yuan, and net profit after deducting non-net profit was -1.97 billion yuan, and the target of “reversing losses” was not achieved.

Of the four quarters of 2023, the company only made a profit of 704 million yuan in the first quarter, and lost the most in the fourth quarter, reaching 1,392 million yuan. Judging from the 2021-2023 results, the company's loss margin is gradually narrowing. Net profit and net profit after deducting non-net profit in 2023 decreased year-on-year losses of 1.42 billion yuan and 600 million yuan, respectively.

In order to improve performance, the company closed some long-term loss-making stores during the reporting period. A Financial Services Association reporter noticed that Yonghui did not simply close its stores and run away due to successive losses. Instead, the company planned to open about 10 new stores in the fourth quarter of last year, and the new stores were all refined new stores. On January 15 of this year, Yonghui opened its first “customized” flagship store in Kunming, Yunnan.

Yonghui mentioned that in order to continue deepening the strategic positioning of a “fresh-based, customer-centered omni-channel digital retail platform”, improve supply chain efficiency, logistics and warehousing efficiency through digitalization, and refine user operations, the company invested about 670 million yuan in technology throughout the year. In 2022, Yonghui spent 481 million yuan on R&D for the year.

In the pre-loss announcement, Yonghui specifically stated, “The company's cash flow is abundant, its ability to operate sustainably has not been affected, and no other delisting risk warning has been triggered as a result.”

This refers to Yonghui's move to return funds by selling assets twice in December last year. The company first announced the sale of 1.43% of Dalian Wanda Commercial Management's shares on December 13, at a transfer price of 4.53 billion yuan. The company received the initial amount of 300 million yuan from the transfer of Wanda Commercial Management shares on December 29, 2023.

Subsequently, on December 21, in order to revitalize the company's assets and reduce the scale of the company's investment, Yonghui announced that it intended to sell 10% of the company's shares in Hongqi Chain (002697.SZ) to Sichuan Commercial Investment Co., Ltd., at a total transfer price of 800 million yuan. The book value corresponding to 10% of the shares transferred was 963 million yuan, while the transaction price was discounted by 163 million yuan. The transaction is expected to reduce Yonghui's profit before tax by 163 million yuan for the year.

Judging from this, the two asset transfers totaling 5.3 billion yuan were aimed at “blood transfusions” to the company and ease financial constraints. In the first three quarters of 2023, Yonghui Supermarket's total debt was 47.24 billion yuan, and current liabilities were 25.258 billion yuan. The balance ratio continued to rise from the first three quarters of 2019-2023, above 80% for three consecutive years. Financial risk and solvency were not optimistic.