When facing thousands of listed company announcements every day, which ones should you read? What are the key points to take away from the dozens or hundreds of pages of material announcements? Are the many professional terms in the announcements bullish or bearish? Check out Caixin's "Quick Read Announcement" column, where our reporters across the country will provide you with accurate, fast and professional interpretations on the night of the announcement.

On October 30th, Caixin reported (Journalists Liu Jian and Wang Ping'an) that major listed hog companies have begun to make money. New Hope Liuhe (000876.SZ), one of the top three hog companies in terms of slaughter volume in the A-share market, is no exception. With the dual boost of industry recovery and cost reduction and efficiency improvement, the company turned losses into profits year-on-year in the first three quarters.

Tonight, New Hope Liuhe released the third quarter report for 2024, achieving operating income of 77.209 billion yuan, a 27.67% year-on-year decrease, and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 0.153 billion yuan, compared to a net loss of 3.858 billion yuan in the same period last year. In the third quarter alone, the company achieved operating income of 27.632 billion yuan, a 25.91% year-on-year decrease, and a net profit of 1.371 billion yuan, turning losses into profits. Regarding the factors contributing to the performance improvement, New Hope Liuhe stated in the financial report: mainly due to the increase in the sale price of hogs compared to the same period last year, resulting in a reduced loss in the company's hog industry year-on-year.

Looking at the sales briefing, the company slaughtered 12.4204 million hogs in the first three quarters of this year, a slight decrease compared to the same period last year, which was 13.0615 million hogs. The selling price of hogs has been trending upwards monthly, reaching a yearly high of 20.13 yuan/KG in August.

Cost reduction and efficiency improvement are another important driver for the company's performance improvement. Public information shows that the cost of fattening pigs in the middle line of operation in October has been reduced to 14.2 yuan/kg, compared to nearly 15.8 yuan/kg in the fourth quarter of last year, a decrease of nearly 1.6 yuan/kg since the beginning of the year.

Performance improvement is bringing an accelerating trend of cash inflow for the company and driving a continuous reduction in the debt ratio. The financial report shows that the net cash flow from operating activities for the first three quarters was 8.274 billion yuan, a 24.14% year-on-year increase; the asset-liability ratio as of the end of the third quarter was 70.85%, continuously decreasing for two consecutive quarters, down by 2.14 percentage points from the half-year end and by 3.18 percentage points from the first quarter end.

New Hope Liuhe recently stated that the company has a comprehensive and comprehensive plan for reducing debt and has been actively promoting it. The debt ratio in Q2 has already decreased compared to Q1. In recent years, the company's operating efficiency and hog production costs have continued to improve. The cost of fattening pigs in the middle line of operation in October has been reduced to 14.2 yuan/kg. In addition, the company is actively advancing other measures to reduce debt and improve capacity utilization through some capacity transformations. These related debts will be handled more smoothly and steadily in the next three years.

It is worth noting that while the hog business is improving, the company's overseas fodder business has developed rapidly this year and is becoming another important pillar of the company's performance. An insider told a Caixin reporter, 'New Hope's overseas fodder business has developed rapidly this year, mainly because the fodder market in some overseas regions now resembles China's golden development period twenty years ago.'

This sign was already evident in the previous semi-annual report. New Hope had previously stated, 'In the first half of the year, the company's overseas fodder sales reached 2.57 million tons, up 16% year-on-year, with double-digit growth in volume and a 50% year-on-year profit increase. Overseas markets were a bright spot for our fodder business in the first half of the year, with good growth in various types of fodder.'

It is important to note that domestic fodder market competition, especially for pig feed, is slightly intense compared to the blue ocean expansion overseas. The Feed Industry Association data shows that domestic pig feed production from January to September was 102.29 million tons, a 6.8% year-on-year decrease. Among them, piglet feed, sow feed, and fattening pig feed production decreased by 12.5%, 7.7%, and 4.7% year-on-year respectively.