On June 28, 2024, S.F. Holding Co., Ltd. (referred to as "S.F. Holding"), headquartered in Guangdong Shenzhen, submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, intending to list on the Main Board. This is the second application after its submission failed on August 21, 2023.
On May 31, 2024, SF Holdings received a notice of overseas issuance and listing filing from the International Cooperation Department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (GHH [2024] No. 1156), and plans to issue no more than approximately 625 million overseas listed ordinary shares and list them on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
SF Holdings (002352.SZ) was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in January 2017 using the backdoor listing of Ding Tai New Materials and completed the name change in February of the same year.
Link to SF Holdings' prospectus:
https://www1.hkexnews.hk/app/sehk/2024/106579/documents/sehk24062801463_c.pdf
Main Business
Founded by Mr. Wang Wei in Shunde, Guangdong in 1993, SF Holdings has developed for thirty years. In 2023, in terms of revenue, SF Holdings is the largest in China, Asia, and the fourth largest comprehensive logistics service provider in the world. It is also a Fortune Global 500 company. The company is in a leading market position in five logistics sub-sectors in China and four logistics sub-sectors in Asia, providing customers with comprehensive logistics services, including express delivery, fast shipping, refrigerated shipping, same-city instant delivery, supply chain solutions, and international logistics services.
According to the Frost Sullivan report, as of December 31, 2023, SF Holdings has a huge global distribution network covering 202 countries and regions, operating 103 aircraft and more than 200,000 vehicles, respectively the largest air transport fleet and land transport fleet in Asia. As of December 31, 2023, SF Holdings has approximately 2 million active monthly customers and approximately 663 million dispersed individual customers. According to the Frost Sullivan report, these two sets of data are the highest among all logistics service providers in Asia.
SF Holdings is also a technology-driven company. As of March 31, 2023, the company has more than 4,000 patents and patent applications and continues to use self-developed technology to provide innovative solutions. The company's self-developed "SF Brain" is a data-driven middle platform system that can effectively manage a large and complex logistics network to improve operational efficiency and optimize costs.
There are three key attributes to SF Holdings' business model: direct operating model, comprehensive logistics capability, and independent third party. The company directly operates the entire end-to-end logistics process from initial pickup to final delivery, minimizing its reliance on franchisees and giving the company strong operational control, logistics network timeliness, quality visibility, and dynamic resource scheduling, supporting the company's industry-leading speed, cost, and reliability. SF Holdings' comprehensive logistics capabilities enable the company to provide full-service standardized or customized solutions to meet the constantly changing needs of customers in terms of breadth and depth, increase customer wallet share, and achieve growth rates higher than the industry. SF Holdings is also the only large-scale comprehensive logistics service provider independent of major e-commerce platforms in China, able to serve customers neutrally and provide full-service standardized or customized solutions to customers through its strong comprehensive logistics capabilities.
Revenue Model
SF Holdings' revenue mainly comes from:
Express delivery and large item business division;
Same-city instant delivery business division;
Supply chain and international business division.
Revenue details by business division, with absolute amounts and their percentage of total revenue shown per line:
Shareholder Structure
According to the prospectus, as of June 20, 2024, SF Holdings had issued approximately 4.816 billion shares. In the shareholder structure before its listing in Hong Kong,
Mr. Wang Wei holds 53.20% of the shares through Mingde Holdings and Shenzhen Weishun, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mingde Holdings, holds 2.08% of the shares, with a total shareholding of 55.28%;
* Mr. Wang Wei directly holds 99.90% of Mingde Holdings shares.
Mr. He Jie (executive director) holds 122,000 shares;
Ms. Wang Xin (executive director) holds 172,000 shares;
Mr. Li Jiashi (independent non-executive director) holds 38,000 shares;
Mr. Liu Yilu (supervisor) holds 35.79378 million shares, accounting for approximately 0.74%;
Other A-share shareholders hold a total of approximately 43.97% of the shares.
Board of directors and executives
The board of directors of S.F. Holding is composed of 6 directors, including:
3 executive directors: Mr. Wang Wei (Chairman and CEO), Mr. He Jie (Vice President and Chief Financial Officer), Ms. Wang Xin;
3 independent non-executive directors: Mr. Chen Shangwei, Mr. Li Jiashi, Dr. Ding Yibo.
4 supervisors: Ms. Wang Jia, Mr. Liu Jilu, Ms. Li Juhua, Mr. Zhang Shun.
In addition to the executive directors, the senior executives include Mr. Li Sheng (Vice President), Mr. Zhou Haiqiang (Vice President), Mr. Geng Yankun (Vice President), Ms. Gan Ling (Vice President, Board Secretary and Company Secretary).
Corporate Performance
According to financial data, S.F. Holding's revenue in 2021, 2022, and 2023 were RMB 207.187 billion, RMB 267.49 billion, and RMB 258.409 billion, respectively, and net income were RMB 4.382 billion, RMB 7.057 billion, and RMB 7.912 billion, respectively.
Intermediary Team
The main intermediaries for S.F. Holding's IPO include: Goldman Sachs, Huatai International, and JPMorgan as its joint sponsors; PwC as its auditor; Zhonglun W&D Law Firm and Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan, L.L.P. as its Chinese and Hong Kong and US lawyers, respectively; Guohao Law Firm as its Chinese data compliance lawyer; Hon & Co. as the legal advisor of the controlling shareholders; King & Wood Mallesons and Mayer Brown as its Chinese and Hong Kong and US lawyers, respectively; Foster Sullivan Ltd. as its industry consultant.