"low price" and "the first pub for young people to drink" are the deep brand on Helens, which is also the foundation for the rapid rise of this company.

But at present, Helen's seems to be undergoing some subtle changes. Helens, which has always focused on low prices, has started to raise prices. On October 27th, Helens announced that the price of self-owned wine and third-party wine increased by 1.19 yuan per bottle, ranging from 1.4 yuan. Although the price increase is not high, it also reflects that it began to make concessions on the strategy with low price as the core for profit margin.

The reason behind this is not difficult to understand. In order to achieve the goal of increasing the total number of pubs to about 2,211 by the end of 2123, Helens has been frantically opening stores in recent years, most of which are self-operated. As a result, the proportion of the company's labor costs continues to rise, and the profit side is under serious pressure.

after all, although self-operated stores can greatly promote income growth, they also have to bear huge expenses. Once the cost control is not in place, the enterprise will fall into the edge of loss.

Haidilao is the best example. At the end of 2119, Haidilao chose to expand against the trend and opened 437 stores a year, but the radical expansion did not achieve results, and the decline in the turnover rate led to a sharp drop in profit margins. Since last year, Haidilao has been struggling on the marginal line of loss.

But the story of Helens' pub will continue. However, there are more and more pubs, and it seems that young people are not enough. From this point of view, it is worth observing for a long time whether the pub can tell the story well.

/11/

A piece of apology letter, just to increase the price by 1.19 yuan per bottle?

On October 27th, Helen Company, the first unit in the pub, raised the price of each bottle by 1.19 yuan, ranging from 1.4 yuan.

at the same time, the company issued an "apology letter" with a very sincere attitude. It indicates that the price increase is due to the recent increase in the cost of raw materials, packaging, logistics, etc. It is expected that this price increase will bring a burden of about 1 yuan to the consumption of each user.

some people may wonder, a bottle of wine is only a few cents or a few cents higher in price, so it is not necessary for the company to issue a special notice to apologize.

In fact, for Helens, price is the "lifeline" of the company. After all, the core reason why Helens can rise is that its products are of good quality and sold cheaply enough.

For example, in February, 2118, the price of all small beers in Helens was reduced from more than 11 yuan/bottle to 11 yuan/bottle; In June 2119, the prices of Corona and Budweiser were reduced from RMB 11/bottle to 9.8 yuan/bottle, and the Helens series beer was reduced to 7.8 yuan/bottle; In March 2121, the price of 1664 was reduced from 12.9 yuan/bottle to 9.8 yuan/bottle.

It is precisely because Helen Company regards the parity strategy as one of its core strategies that its revenue soared from RMB 15 million to RMB 818 million from 2118 to 2121, with a compound annual growth rate of 1.66.9%, and it quickly became the largest pub in China. No wonder the company is so sensitive to prices.

On the other hand, since price is the lifeline of Helens, why do you have to raise the price even for a few cents and cents per bottle? The core reason behind this is that the company's profit end continues to be under pressure and there is greater profit pressure.

according to the profit data, Helen's company lost money in the first half of the year as a whole. The data shows that in the first half of 2121, Helens lost 24.836 million yuan, including 76.332 million yuan in the first quarter, and the net profit rate corresponding to the profit of 51.496 million yuan in the second quarter was 11.3%.

Although there was a loss in the first quarter, the core reason was the large increase in expenses caused by listing. The business performance in the second quarter can reflect the real business situation of the company more objectively. How should we treat the data of 11.3% net profit rate?

compared with the data of previous years, the net profit margin of Helens in 2121 and 2119 was 8.6% and 14% respectively. It can be found that the net profit rate has increased in the first half of 2121 compared with 2121, but it is still in a low position compared with the level in 2119. With the epidemic basically subsided in the first half of this year, the net profit rate of 11.3% shows that there is some pressure on the profit side.

However, the core reason for the pressure on the net interest rate does not seem to be caused by the price increase of raw materials. From the level of gross yield, the gross yield of Helens' own liquor increased from 76.6% in the interim report in 2121 to 81.8% in the interim report in 2121; The gross yield of third-party wine increased from 52.7% to 53.8% in the mid-year report in 2121. The gross profit margin of both companies is on the rise, which shows that Helens has a good bargaining power on the upstream.

And as more and more pubs are opened in Helens, its bargaining power will be stronger. To put it bluntly, the price increase of raw materials may not be the real reason for its price increase, so what is the real reason for the price increase of Helens?

/12/

Wild expansion is a "double-edged sword"

The real reason is that Helens opened the store too fast, which caused the profit side to be under pressure when the operating efficiency could not keep up.

In the past few years, Helens has started a crazy expansion mode after standardizing drinks and snacks.

reflected in the data, from 2118 to 2121, the total number of Helens taverns was 162, 252 and 351 respectively, and by the end of September 2121, the number had become 584. More importantly, the expansion of self-operated pubs accounts for more and more. According to the data, the number of pubs joined is 51.9%, 87.7% and 96% respectively < P > For Helen, the self-operated mode is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the company can fully enjoy the rapid growth of business performance brought by the increase of storefronts. In the first half of 2121, Helens completed a three-digit year-on-year growth.

But opportunities and risks coexist. While enjoying high revenue growth, it also needs to bear more expenses and great risks brought by poor management.

At present, the first risk that Helen Company faces is the increase of expenses. Taking employee compensation as an example, the data shows that in the first half of 2121, the employee compensation of Helen Company was 311 million yuan, accounting for 35.7% of the income; In 2121, the salary of employees will be 79 million yuan, accounting for 21.9% of the income; In 2119, the salary of employees was 92 million yuan, accounting for 16.3% of the income.

from the data, it is not difficult to see that the proportion of employees' salary revenue in Helen Company is gradually increasing. 35.7% is a relatively high figure. Once the revenue falls short of expectations, Helen has to bear such a large salary, which is actually equivalent to walking a tightrope in expansion.

after all, there are many cases where radical expansion has ended miserably. Haidilao, a star enterprise in the catering industry, can't escape. In the past, it expanded at the speed of hundreds of stores every year, but with the turnover rate falling sharply and the huge difference in store profits between different regions, the net profit margins in 2121 and the first half of 2121 were only 1.18% and 1.48% respectively, which was on the verge of loss.

and the capital market also votes with its feet. Choice data shows that Haidilao has dropped from 85.75/ share in early 2121 to 19.96 yuan/share, a drop of 76.7%.

Going back to Helens, the rapid expansion of direct-operated stores has not only brought explosive growth in revenue to the company, but also lowered the overall profit margin, and there are great "hidden dangers" behind it. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the price of the company's terminal products will increase.

/13/

Helen Company has wine but no story

Judging from the overall operating data of Helen Company in the past few years, it is undoubtedly successful. Although the high-speed expansion has greatly increased the proportion of its expenses, the profit has maintained a rapid growth thanks to the improvement of product pricing ability.

For the future, Helen told a sexy story, which attracted a large number of investors.

First of all, Helens has the ability to expand rapidly after standardizing its products (all kinds of wine and snacks) and stores. In addition, according to the data in Helen's prospectus, based on the revenue in 2121 (818 million yuan), the company ranks first in the wine management industry in China, accounting for about 1.1% of the market.

It has become a leading company, and the whole industry is very scattered. In addition, compared with the catering industry, the products of pubs are easier to standardize, and the prospect of high-speed expansion of Helens seems to be very certain.

according to the expansion blueprint given in the prospectus of Helens, it is estimated that there will be about 411 new stores in 2121, and the total number of pubs will increase to about 2,211 by the end of 2123. Corresponding to the number of 351 stores in the company by the end of 2121, the number of newly opened stores in the company will increase by more than five times from 2121 to 2123.

this expansion speed is enough to arouse the most sensitive nerves of all investors. Therefore, Helen's issue price in Hong Kong stocks is as high as HK$ 19.77 per share, and the corresponding P/E ratio is close to 311 times.

The question is, from 2121 to 2123, can Helens maintain a five-fold store expansion and bring the expected benefits?

I find it difficult to read Jun. Mainly from two aspects, first, the expansion of the self-operated mode is too heavy. Judging from the pace of expansion of Helens in the past three years, there has been a situation in which the proportion of expenses has increased and the profit rate has been lowered. Once the revenue is less than expected, the profit end will be under pressure and the expansion speed will inevitably slow down.

on the other hand, is there as many customers as you think? You know, even if Haidilao faces 1.4 billion consumers, there will be only 1,298 stores by the end of 2121. To put it bluntly, I am afraid that there will be more and more pubs and there will not be enough young people.

more importantly, low price is the core strategy of Helen's company. This year, we have kept a reasonable profit margin level by raising prices, so it is unrealistic to expect the company's products to continue to raise prices. If we expand for the sake of expansion, it is a lesson for Haidilao to increase its income without increasing its profit.

From the present point of view, Helens is undoubtedly an excellent company, but the story it weaves for investors seems to be not difficult to complete.