Key points of investment:
The company released its report for the first quarter of 2024. In the first quarter of 2024, the company achieved operating income of 2,585 billion yuan, -77.4% year-on-year, -63.6%; net profit to mother of 3.897 billion yuan, -179.9% year-on-year, further increasing month-on-month loss; net profit after deduction of 3.917 billion yuan, further increasing month-on-month loss, and lower performance than expected.
SQM's mining tax counterpart affected the company's investment income of about 1.7 billion yuan. The mining tax industry and products in Chile only target copper ore. Lithium ore has not yet been included in the scope, but the Chilean government has expanded the scope of mining tax in practice. Previously, the Chilean court ruled in favor of SQM's claim not to pay mining taxes, but with Chile's left-wing president coming to power, the Santiago Chilean court reversed the previous ruling and requested SQM to pay back the tax. This fee has been included in “other non-current assets” until now, but with the Chilean court ruling, SQM is likely to adjust it to the current income statement and is expected to reduce its net profit for the first quarter of 2024 by approximately $1.1 billion (including mining tax amounts for the 2011-2023 fiscal year). Based on a shareholding ratio of 22.16%, the net profit impact of invested units to be shared in the first quarter of 2024 is approximately RMB 1.7 billion.
Concentrate stocks that were underwritten at a high price in 23 years caused the profit and loss of the company's minority shareholders to increase. In 2023, the contract price of Thalison Q1-Q4 concentrate was 5783/5431/3740/3016 US dollars/ton, while in 2023, Thalison sold about 1,432 million tons of concentrate to the two shareholders, of which a total of 845,000 tons of technical concentrate were sold to Abo and the company. Considering the company's own lithium salt production and outsourced processing volume last year, as well as the remaining concentrate inventory underwritten in 2022, there is still unused concentrate inventory that was underwritten in 2023 in 2024. Referring to the previous quarterly underwriting price, the underwriting cost for this batch of inventory concentrate exceeds $3,000. The company's mine-side equity was only 26%. The high underwriting price meant that profits were transferred from the smelting side to the mining side, and minority shareholders' profits and losses increased due to fewer mine-side equity. Currently, the pricing mechanism for concentrates underwritten by the two shareholders from Thalison is M-1. With a large number of lower concentrates using moving-weighted average costs, it is expected that the impact of this batch of high-priced underwritten concentrates on profits will gradually be eliminated.
SQM's partnership with Codelco to develop Atacama Salt Lake has no impact on the company's long-term equity investment. Previously, SQM's lease contract with Corfo would expire in 2030, while the 2030-2060 lease was owned by Codelco. In order to extend the development period for Chile's Atacama Salt Lake, SQM and Codelco, Chile's national copper company, reached a non-legally binding memorandum of understanding on the operation and development of Atacama Salt Lake from 2025 to 2060 to jointly develop the salt lake, successfully continuing the mining period. Currently, Tianqi Lithium is requesting SQM to hold a new extraordinary shareholders' meeting to discuss whether the non-legally binding framework agreement harms shareholders' rights and interests, so there will be no impairment of SQM's long-term equity investment until the end of '23.
Profit forecast and investment advice: We consider SQM's supplementary tax payments and the impact of the company's high-priced underwritten concentrates left over from 2023. The company's net profit for 24-26 is -9.39/39.10/5.146 billion yuan (the previous value was 32.95/39.20/5.148 billion yuan). Considering that high-priced concentrate stocks and SQM tax payments are one-time expenses, there is no impact on the company's long-term performance, and the “buy” rating is maintained.
Risk warning
Demand for new energy vehicles falls short of expectations; projects under construction fall short of expectations