Photo source: Visual China

Blue Whale financial reporter Shao Yuting

Recently, Jinbo Biotech (832982.BJ)'s first quarter performance soared. At the same time, the founder's net worth also skyrocketed. Yang Xia, who was still coaching at university 16 years ago, probably didn't expect that a decision to turn around allowed her to lead a 10 billion dollar company into the capital market, and she also quickly became the first richest woman in Shanxi. In the eyes of familiar people, this “scientist with a tough style of work” is releasing energy in the capital market.

Female teachers bring out companies with a market capitalization of 10 billion

Jinbo Synthetic Biotechnology Industrial Park, located in Jinbo Street, Xiaodian District, Taiyuan City, is the largest manufacturing base for biomaterials of human collagen in China. Every year, about one million collagen masks are sold all over the country.

Jinbo Biotech, the company behind the base, is a key support enterprise in Shanxi Province and a national “specialized, special and new” small giant enterprise. Its main business is R&D, production and sales of various medical devices and functional skincare products centered on recombinant collagen products and anti-HPV bioprotein products.

Yang Xia, born in 2008 in Qinshui County, Jincheng, Shanxi, chose to teach at Shanxi Medical University after graduating from graduate school. Her main research direction was liver transplantation technology. A capital market person familiar with Yang Xia told Blue Whale Finance that Yang Xia is strict and bold like a scientist, and has a strong management style. This also laid the professional foundation for the later founding of Kinpo Biotech.

In teaching and research, Yang Xia discovered that the difficulty in preserving organs is the addition of collagen, but the technology to extract human collagen is only mastered by the US and is expensive; 1 gram of human collagen costs 100,000 yuan.

Therefore, Yang Xia decided to jointly invest 500,000 yuan with her husband Ren Xianwei to register and establish a research team with top domestic research institutes such as Fudan University, the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Sichuan University to study this “humanized collagen” with a golden ratio.

Among comparable companies in the same industry, Jinbo Biotech's R&D costs are much higher. Financial reports show that in 2023, the company's R&D expenditure accounted for 13.28% of revenue. Among comparable companies, Giant Biotech's R&D expenditure accounted for 2.1%; Aimeike's R&D investment accounted for 8.72%.

Ten years of hard work. In 2018, thanks to high R&D investment and unremitting efforts, Yang Xia finally successfully overcame difficulties, discovered only 30 highly active functional regions of amino acids in the human body's type III collagen sequence, and successfully analyzed the crystal structure of the core functional area.

In June 2021, “Weiyimei”, the first injectable “recombinant type III humanized collagen freeze-dried fiber” terminal product independently developed by Jinbo Biotech, was approved for launch. Jinbo Biotech became the only company in the world to industrialize humanized collagen.

With “Weiyimei” approved for listing, Jinbo Biotech attracted the attention of the beauty industry. In August 2021, Jin Xuekun, the former CEO of Huaxi Biotech, was appointed as the general manager of Jinbo Biotech and was awarded 1.93% of Jinbo Biotech's options. As of the end of 2023, Jin Xuekun was the company's third-largest shareholder, with a shareholding ratio of 1.91%.

At the time, Jinbo Biotech had already emerged in the primary market. As an investor in Jinbo Biotech, Liu Pingan, chairman of Jin Changchuan Capital, told Blue Whale Finance that investing in Jinbo Biotech at the time was based on Jinbo Biotech's original technology, original products, and broad market prospects. Prior to our investment, Jinbo Biotech had already obtained three types of medical device certificates. Its technology and products, whether medical or aesthetic, can achieve a wide range of alternatives to current market products and have good market prospects.

With the support of investment institutions and the addition of Jin Xuekun, Jinbo Biotech also began to launch an impact on the capital market.

In July 2023, Jinbo Biotech listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange with a reserve price of 49 yuan/share, making it the most expensive new stock on the Beijing Stock Exchange. Since then, its stock price performance has continued to be impressive, breaking through 300 yuan at its highest.

By the close of trading on April 16, Jinbo Biotech's stock price was 209.44 yuan/share, up 1.08%, more than four times higher than the issue price. The increase in the past year was 327.43%, with a total market value of 14.26 billion yuan, ranking second on the Beijing Stock Exchange.

The founder became the richest woman in Xinjin Shanxi

Behind the dust in stock prices, the founder also made a lot of money and quickly became the richest woman in the new Shanxi region.

In the “2024 Hurun Global Rich List” recently released by Hurun Research Institute, Yang Xia ranked fourth among all entrepreneurs of Shanxi nationality with a wealth of 8.4 billion yuan, making her the first richest woman in Shanxi in recent years.

Last month, the annual report released by Jinbo Biotech showed that in 2023, the company achieved operating income of 780 million yuan, up 99.96% year on year; net profit and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 300 million yuan, up 174.60% year on year.

According to the annual report, as of the end of 2023, Yang Xia held 40.988 million shares of the company, with a shareholding ratio of 58.89%. Based on today's closing price, the corresponding market value is 8.398 billion yuan. In addition, Yang Xia's husband, Ren Xianwei, holds 1.4061 million shares, with a shareholding ratio of 2.07%, with a corresponding market value of 294 million yuan; Ren Xianwei's brother and his spouse Liu Liping hold a total of 1.92% of the shares, holding 1.391 million shares, with a corresponding market value of 274 million yuan.

Jinbo Biotech's equity distribution plan is to distribute a cash dividend of 10 yuan (tax included) to all shareholders using undistributed profits. A total cash dividend of 68.086 million yuan is expected to be distributed to all shareholders. Based on this calculation, Yang Xia is expected to receive 40.988 million yuan in dividends, and her family members are expected to receive a total of 2,7152 million yuan in dividends.

Two shareholders with state-owned backgrounds also withdrew after the listing.

According to the prospectus, as of the end of June 2023, Jinbo Biotech's third-largest shareholder was Shanxi Transformation and Comprehensive Reform Demonstration Zone Synthetic Biology Industry Investment and Development Co., Ltd. (“Comprehensive Reform Zone Industrial Investment”), holding 1.35 million shares, with a shareholding ratio of 2.17%. The fourth largest shareholder was Shanxi Science and Technology Innovation City Investment and Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Innovation City Industrial Investment”), holding 1.35 million shares, with a shareholding ratio of 2.17%.

Industrial Investment in the Comprehensive Reform Zone is controlled by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Center of the Shanxi Transformation and Comprehensive Reform Demonstration Zone. The actual controller of Innovation City Industrial Investment is the Shanxi Comprehensive Transformation and Reform Demonstration Zone Management Committee. Both are state-owned corporations.

In the 2023 three-quarter report, Comprehensive Reform Zone Industrial Investment is no longer among the top ten shareholders; according to the 2023 report, Innovation City Industrial Investment's shareholding decreased by 272,200 shares, and the shareholding ratio was reduced to 1.59%. From the date of listing of Jinbo Biotech until September 30, the highest stock price was 181.96 yuan/share, the lowest price was 121.41 yuan/share, and the average price was 142.18 yuan/share. If all 1.35 million shares of the Comprehensive Reform Zone were to be reduced, it is estimated that the minimum amount of 162 million yuan could be cashed out.