Core views
The meat duck industry picked up, and Q3 profits picked up year over year. The company achieved operating income of 15.363 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2024, -7.30% year-on-year; net profit to mother of 0.141 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2024, +2721.59% year-on-year. On a quarterly basis, the company achieved operating income of 5.298 billion yuan in 2024Q3, -2.26% month-on-month, and -7.69% year-on-year; 2024Q3 achieved net profit of 0.024 billion yuan, or -37.36% month-on-month, and +128.68% year-on-year. The overall profit of the meat duck industry improved significantly during the year due to falling prices of upstream feed ingredients and rising prices of downstream duck down by-products. As one of the largest domestic meat duck breeding, slaughter and processing enterprises, the company is expected to fully benefit from the recovery in the industry.
The company's Q3 profit margin continued to improve year over year. The company's gross sales margin for 2024Q1-Q3 was 4.89%, +2.12pct year on year, of which Q3 gross sales margin was 4.51%, +0.36pct, and +3.24pct year on year, mainly due to the recovery in the meat and duck industry; the net sales margin for 2024Q1-Q3 was 1.39%, +1.31pcts year on month, of which the net sales margin for Q3 was 0.85%, -0.33pct year on year, and management expenses increased.
The overall cost rate remained stable. The company's 2024Q1-Q3 sales expenses were 0.093 billion yuan, +13.66% year-on-year, corresponding sales expense ratio 0.61% (year-on-year +0.11pct), mainly due to the company's increased product promotion efforts and increases in personnel expenses, consulting and channel service expenses; 2024Q1-Q3 management expenses were 0.261 billion yuan, +16.77% year-on-year, corresponding management expense ratio 1.70% (+0.35pct year over year); 2024Q1-Q3 financial expenses were 0.051 One billion yuan, which is basically the same year over year, corresponds to a financial expense ratio of 0.33% (+0.03 pct year over year).
Asset turnover efficiency has been accelerated, and operating cash flow has improved markedly. The company's net operating cash flow in the first three quarters of 2024 was 0.987 billion yuan, +151.18%. Net operating cash flow accounted for 6.42% of operating income (+3.53 pct compared to the full year level of the previous year), and the proportion of cash received from sales of goods and services provided as a share of operating income was 97.96% of operating income (+0.59 pct compared to the full year of the previous year). In terms of major current asset turnover, the company's inventory days in the first three quarters of 2024 reached 18.23 days (-14.71% YoY), and accounts receivable turnover days reached 5.76 days (-33.83% YoY).
Risk warning: risk of poultry disease; risk of large fluctuations in feed raw materials; food safety risk.
Investment advice: As one of the largest domestic poultry slaughter and processing enterprises, Yike Foods is steadily improving its internal reinforcement chain and is expected to benefit from a recovery in livestock and poultry farming. We maintain our profit forecast. The company's net profit for 2024-2026 is 0.21/0.22/0.18 billion yuan (year-on-year reversal/ +3.4%/-19.0%), EPS is 0.47/0.49/0.39 yuan, and PE is 26/26/32x, respectively, maintaining a “superior to market” rating.