can local VC successfully launch the first shot of IPO in Hong Kong?
Buffett, the “God of stocks”, who has loved consumer stocks all his life, has a very classic saying: “life is like a snowball. The important thing is to find very wet snow and a long slope.”
By implication, investing is nothing more than: through the compounding of time (a long slope), high-quality targets (very wet snow) can realize the accumulation of wealth (rolling out a big snowball).
Over the past decade or so, the investment in China’s consumer track has been unprecedented. With the rise of new consumer goods, one brand after another has been born that we are familiar with.
In this round of boom, Tiantu investment focused on the consumption field and cast one seed after another. There are Tiantu investment figures behind brands such as China flying crane, Zhong Xuegao, Jiang Xiaobai, tea Yan Yuese, three and a half meals, Zhou Heiya, master Bao, and little red book. Many enterprises have also been listed, or are sprinting towards the capital market.
In the past, Tiantu investment was holding a whip to urge the invested enterprises to work fast. Now, it is finally their turn to try to connect with the capital market.
On June 30, Tiantu investment officially submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong stock exchange for listing on the Hong Kong main board. Previously, Tiantu investment’s shares listed on the new third board were suspended on May 20. Before the suspension of trading, the total share capital of the company was 520million shares, with a market value of 2.599 billion yuan, at 5 yuan per share.
Once listed successfully, Tiantu investment may become China’s first local VC listed on the new third board and Hong Kong stocks at the same time.
But for investors, as a 20-year-old PE institution, how did Tiantu investment become the largest consumer investment institution in China? Impact “the first share of consumer PE”, has it found “Changpo thick snow”? If you choose to go to Hong Kong stock market at this time, can the final result be achieved?
From “large and complete” to “refined and deep”,
How the consumer investment sniper was born
The big consumption industry with a large number of bull stocks is a wide and crowded Avenue.
Food, clothing, housing and transportation, from the e-commerce platform to a small biscuit, consumers are always waiting for better and more innovative business models, products and services. Because of this, groups of entrepreneurs and investment institutions jumped into this track and staged “myths and beautiful talks” in the consumption track with their enthusiasm.
There is a paragraph in the prospectus of Tiantu Investment: “from 2019 to 2021, the number of investment projects of Tiantu in China’s consumer industry ranked third among all private equity investors, second only to Tencent investment and Sequoia China; in the same period, Tiantu ranked first among all private equity enterprises focusing on consumption”.
According to some indicators, by the end of 2021, Tiantu had invested in 205 companies (including companies that have exited), with a total asset management scale of 24.9 billion yuan, and the funds under management achieved an average internal rate of return of 28.2%, more than 35% of the portfolio company
Domestic vc/pe has long discussed the listing of venture capital companies, and listing has always been the pursuit of some venture capital institutions. However, the listing of venture capital companies affects the whole body, which requires overall careful consideration.
An insider said that there is a long way to go for A-share listing of venture capital institutions: first, private placement cannot be publicly offered; Second, the capital market should support the real economy, and financial institutions such as venture capital should not be listed.
So far, no venture capital institution has entered the A-share market through IPO. Today, Luxin venture capital, the “first share of venture capital”, is only successfully listed through backdoor in 2010.
Based on this, in 2017, Tiantu investment became the first pilot stock of investment institutions to issue innovative and entrepreneurial corporate bonds (mass entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship bonds) on the new third board, with a scale of 1.8 billion yuan. In Feng Weidong’s view, it is precisely because Tiantu “creates value through specialization” has been recognized by regulators.
Objectively speaking, as China’s first investment company focusing on consumption, the development of Tiantu investment is indeed commendable.
Take investing in Zhou Heiya as an example. As the earliest institutional investor of Zhou Heiya, Tiantu investment invested 58million yuan in Zhou Heiya, which had only dozens of stores at that time. Six years later, Zhou Heiya, which has 700 chain stores, was listed in Hong Kong, with a market value of more than 16billion yuan, and its profit was even three times that of Juewei duck neck, which has more than 7000 stores. In this project alone, the expected return of Tiantu investment is more than 1.5 billion yuan.
By the end of last year, the company had invested in 205 portfolio enterprises, 169 of which were in the consumer sector, involving food, clothing, beverages and other sub sectors. 23 companies are valued at $1billion.
Consumer racing is a rather simple industry, which has been growing in obscurity at the same time. In the view of Finance and economics Wuji, the reason why Tiantu investment can obtain the above-mentioned good investment is inseparable from the two most important factors: grasping the outlet of new consumption and Tiantu’s own methodology.
On the one hand, according to the data of insight consulting, the market size of China’s consumer industry increased from 43.8 trillion yuan in 2017 to 55.5 trillion yuan in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 6.1%, which is expected to reach 73.9 trillion yuan in 2026. The golden age of consumer goods investment in China has arrived;
On the other hand, with the deepening of reform and opening up, the consumption level of residents has increased significantly, and the demand for consumption upgrading is very urgent. Recently, the market size of new consumption in China has increased from 5.3 trillion yuan in 2017 to 10.6 trillion yuan in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 18.7%, accounting for 19.0% of the total consumer market last year.
Looking closely, whether it’s Zhou Heiya, China flying crane, Baiguoyuan, Naixue’s tea, or tea Yan Yuese, Zhong Xuegao, master Bao, etc., behind this is Tiantu’s investment logic of “improving the living standards and quality of Chinese people”.
At the same time, Tiantu also has its own
The new consumption track bears the brunt. According to the statistics of it orange, the investment amount of new consumption has continued to decline in the past five quarters. In the first quarter of this year, the total financing of new consumption was 15.27 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 69%.
Under the double attack of the cold winter of capital and the cold of consumption, Tiantu investment, which has always been regarded as a consumption track investment expert, is also inevitably impacted.
On the basis of the substantial increase in investment projects last year, the total investment amount of Tiantu investment decreased slightly. The annual report shows that in 2021, the company invested in 56 projects through managed funds and its own funds, an increase of 51% over 2020; The total investment completed in the whole year was 1.629 billion yuan, a decrease of nearly 10% compared with the investment of 1.801 billion yuan in 2020.
More importantly, apart from the overall economic environment, several star consumer enterprises of Tiantu investment either have a bumpy road to listing or have a difficult life after listing. The “falsification” of their business models has led to doubts about their investment strength in the capital market.
Since this year, Baiguoyuan, which has made three attempts to make an IPO, has not only fallen into a storm of negative public opinion on the eve of its listing, but also the ceiling of the enterprise has begun to appear; Bama tea industry failed to appear on the market for many times. In May, it voluntarily withdrew its application during the listing process.
In addition, Naixue’s tea stocks, which have been listed, have fallen all the way since their listing, with a current decline of 68.5%; With the title of “China concept ESG first share”, the stock price of everything has fallen by more than 80% since its listing last year.
Tiantu investment did not want to save itself.
According to media reports, in 2021 and this year, Tiantu’s investment style has shifted a lot compared with the overall situation before.
In 2021, there were 30 large consumption investments, accounting for 71.4%; Among other investments, biomedicine, a single variety, has been invested 6 times, accounting for 14.3%; In 2022, there were 7 large consumption investments, accounting for 43.8%; Among other investments, biomedicine, a single variety, has been invested five times, accounting for 31.3%.
Tiantu’s investment since 2021, source: tianyancha
The problem is that at the “Zunyi Meeting” of Tiantu investment, Feng Weidong, the chief investment officer, once proposed to give up the pure technology field strategically and focus on consumer goods investment. The self-awareness of this decision is based on the fact that most team members are from financial or consulting backgrounds, and technology is not their strong point.
“This is an important turning point. Because we can only do consumption, our ability to see projects must be improved, which also forces us to find a threshold in this industry that seems to have a low threshold.”
Now it seems that when the whole consumer industry is cold, it will not only test Tiantu investment’s malicious vision for consumer enterprises, but also the transformation of investment style is a huge test for the investment team for the “second growth curve”.
In the short term, the current listing is
The driving force behind the upgrading of Chinese eating and drinking is still a breath away from the IPO
值得一提的是，自2013年开始持续举办“磨刀会”，寓意为“磨刀不误砍柴功”，会上分享一些商业实践经验，为创业者搭建资源平台。机构选择与被投资企业一起成长，培养后者解决问题的能力。
此外，为了尽可能保证决策的正确性和规避风险，天图还专门设立了一套独特的法定反对派机制，由团队中一名资深的投资人员作为反对派，对投资论点提出质疑，保证投委会成员能够从更多角度了解潜在的投资机会和风险点。
一边是踩上风口，一边是通过自身努力，天图投资在聚焦消费领域11年后逐渐探索出了一套知识框架和投研体系，并得到了行业的认可。
但这并不意味着上市路上的天图投资能够高枕无忧，事实上，消费赛道虽然前景巨大但并不好做，也没有永远的“常胜将军”。
去年来，天图投资业绩出现明显波动。2021年营业收入、净利润双双下滑。其中，2021年实现营业收入20亿元，同比下降18.63%；实现净利润7.3亿元，同比下降29.77%。
探究背后的原因，这其中就隐藏的天图投资能否上市，或者是上市后的长期投资潜力。
据清科研究中心报告显示，2022年一季度中国股权投资市场募资规模为4092.70亿元，同比下降3.2%；新募基金1374支，同比下降0.6%；按细分市场来看，早期投资市场和VC市场新募集基金的总金额，均同比下降超20%。
新消费赛道首当其冲。据IT桔子统计，近五个季度以来，新消费投资金额处于持续下降态势。今年一季度，新消费融资总额为152.7亿元，同比减少了69%。
在资本寒冬、消费遇冷的双重夹击下，一直以消费赛道投资专家自诩的天图投资也不免受到冲击。
在去年投资项目大幅增加的基础上，天图投资合计投资金额略有下降。年报显示，2021年公司通过在管基金以及自有资金共投资了56个项目，较2020年增长51%；全年合计完成投资金额16.29亿元，较2020年18.01亿元的投资金额相比，下降近10%。
更为关键的是，撇开整个经济形势的大环境外，天图投的几家明星消费企业，要么是上市的路途坎坷，要么是上市后的日子不好过，这些企业商业模式的“证伪”都让资本市场出现了对其投资实力的质疑。
今年以来，三度冲刺IPO的百果园在上市前夜，不仅陷入负面舆论风波，企业天花板也开始显现；八马茶业多次上市未果，5月份在上市过程中又主动撤回申请。
此外，已经上市的奈雪的茶股自上市以来一路阴跌，目前跌幅达68.5%；顶着“中概股ESG第一股”头衔的万物新生，自去年上市以来，股价已跌超80%。
据媒体报道，2021年和今年，天图的投资风格与之前总体情况相比，发生了很大的漂移。
2021年大消费投资30次，占比为71.4%；而其它投资中生物医药这个单一品种的投资6次，占比为14.3%；2022年大消费投资7次，占比为43.8%；而其它投资中生物医药这个单一品种的投资5次，占比为31.3%。
问题在于，在那场天图投资的“遵义会议”上，首席投资官冯卫东曾提出对纯技术领域战略性放弃，全力聚焦在消费品投资。这一决定的自我认知是建立在团队成员大多为金融或咨询背景，技术并非他们所长的基础之上的。
“这是个重要的转折点。因为只能做消费了，看项目的能力得提高，这也迫使我们一定要在这个看起来好像门槛不高的行业里面找到一个门槛。”
如今看来，在整个消费行业遇冷的情况下，不仅更加考验天图投资对消费企业的毒辣眼光，而为了“第二增长曲线”，投资风格的转变对投资团队同样是一个巨大的考验。
短期来说，目前上市对天图个体来说并不算一个好时机，面对地缘政治冲突、肆虐的疫情、全球经济下行，再叠加金融市场震荡和各国央行加息的局势，导致整个投资领域步伐放缓，上市及以后经营的不确定性，是公司无法预料的风险。
但从行业的长远考虑，对于私募股权投资机构，上市有时能够储备弹药来避险，会成为其穿越经济周期的方式。
2007年黑石上市的前夕，美国正处于次贷危机的前夜。黑石创始人苏世民在《我的经验与教训》中表示，“我的直觉告诉我，这个世界正在走向疯狂，公司需要尽快储备现金，我们不能再等了。”
在书中，苏世民还披露了黑石必须上市的原因：“成功上市可以募集永久性资本，用于投资公司，并扩大黑石的业务范围；就算市场转向，也不用担心继续募资的问题，可以把竞争对手甩在身后。”而黑石也正是借助上市的融资，最终躲过次贷危机还实现了抄底。
正如前文提到的，登陆资本市场，一直都是横亘在VC/PE心中的结。天图投资试水到港交所上市，对于行业而言是一个良好的开端，但此举能否为“创投机构募资”打开一扇希望之门仍是一个未知数。
而即便完成上市，作为投资机构的天图为那些创业者提供的生存和发展意见，也值得其自身谨勉：
“如果将创业企业比作水桶，当这只水桶有一块板做到极致，长度超过了其他水桶时，或许就能获得投资人的青睐。而剩余的其他短板正是投资人所赌的未来潜力：团队的决心，机构的资源都左右着企业是否能通过扩张、转型或者创新将自己变成一个完整而结实的水桶。”
作者：萧田；来源：财经无忌（ID：caijwj），转载已获得授权。
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