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Yangtze Business Daily News● Yangtze Business Daily reporter Shen Yourong

Aofei Data (300738.SZ), which once attracted much attention because the secretary of the board of directors invested 400 million yuan to acquire the shares of the major shareholder, has made another big move.

On the evening of August 12, Aofei Data released an announcement that the company and its wholly-owned subsidiary Hebei Aofei Intelligent Computing Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hebei Aofei Intelligent Computing") signed a contract with a customer to provide data center construction and IDC services to a certain customer.

The contract has been questioned by the market. The announcement stated that the total revenue is expected to be 1.089 billion yuan. However, the contract period is as long as 20 years, and there is uncertainty as to whether the contract can be successfully fulfilled.

According to the disclosure, Aofei Data is a core partner of China Telecom and other three major communication operators, and its main service customers include famous Internet companies such as Sohu, NetEase, UC, Fengxing, and Sanqi Interactive Entertainment. However, the company's profitability has increased slowly.

From 2020 to 2023, the company's net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company (hereinafter referred to as "net profit") as a whole stagnated, hovering around 150 million yuan.

A reporter from the Yangtze Business Daily noted that since its listing in 2018, Aofei Data has been intensively raising funds, with a total of more than 2.6 billion yuan raised, and the company has only distributed 100 million yuan in cash dividends. Aofei Data's major shareholders have frequently agreed to transfer shares, cashing out more than 700 million yuan.

1.089 billion orders and a 20-year cooperation period

Signing an order worth more than 1 billion yuan should have been a good thing, but the market is more worried.

According to the announcement, recently, Aofei Data, its wholly-owned subsidiary Hebei Aofei Zhisuan and a customer signed a "Computer Room Agreement". Hebei Aofei Zhisuan provides data center construction and IDC services to a customer. During the contract period, the total revenue amount is estimated to be 1.089 billion yuan, and the contract cooperation period is 20 years.

It was disclosed that the counterparty of the transaction is a client of Aofei Data, which has strong financial strength, good reputation and the ability to perform. Due to the confidentiality requirements of the client's related business, Aofei Data exempted the disclosure of the client's specific information and part of the contract information. After negotiation, Aofei Data assumed joint and several guarantee liability to a client for the contractual obligations of Hebei Aofei Zhisuan under this agreement.

In the view of market insiders, there are at least two questions about this contract. First, whether stable cooperation with the customer can be maintained for 20 years; second, whether Aofei Data has the ability to fulfill the contract.

The client signed a 20-year cooperation contract, which shows that the client has strong strength. So, is the cooperation between this client and Aofei Data stable?

Hebei Aofei Intelligent Computing, one of the entities involved in this cooperation, is a small company that was acquired and renamed by Aofei Data in June this year.

Public information shows that Hebei Aofei Intelligent Computing's predecessor, Lasheng Technology Service Dingxing Co., Ltd., was established in May 2023 with a registered capital of 10 million yuan and a paid-in capital of 0 yuan. It was originally wholly owned by Lasheng Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. In June this year, Aofei Data invested 10 million yuan to buy it.

It is somewhat hard to believe that a small company that was established only one year and three months ago and has a registered capital of 10 million yuan would accept an order with a term of 20 years and an amount of 1.089 billion yuan.

Of course, Aofei Data said that the company is one of the parties to the contract and will complete the contract together with its subsidiary.

So, how much profit can this order bring to Aofei Data? The 1.089 billion yuan order, spread over 20 years, will bring annual revenue of about 55 million yuan. This has little impact on Aofei Data, whose annual operating income exceeds 1.3 billion yuan.

Major shareholders frequently plan transfer agreements

Aofei Data's operating performance is not outstanding, and major shareholders are frequently planning to transfer equity.

As of now, Aofei Data has not disclosed its operating results for the first half of this year. In the first quarter of this year, the company achieved operating income of 381 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.07%; net profit of 51 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.35%.

In the first quarter of 2020, the company's net profit was 64 million yuan. The net profit in the first quarter of this year has not yet recovered to the same level as in the same period of 2020.

Aofei Data landed on the A-share market in 2018, with operating income and net profit of 411 million yuan and 58 million yuan respectively. From 2019 to 2023, the company's operating income was 883 million yuan, 841 million yuan, 1.205 billion yuan, 1.097 billion yuan, and 1.335 billion yuan respectively. Although there were fluctuations, it showed an upward trend. The net profit performance in the same period was general, which was 104 million yuan, 157 million yuan, 145 million yuan, 166 million yuan, and 147 million yuan respectively, with year-on-year changes of 79.17%, 50.88%, -7.67%, 14.58%, and -14.70%.

Data shows that the company's net profit stagnated from 2020 to 2023, and the net profit in 2023 was less than that in 2020.

Aofei Data is a leading domestic provider of comprehensive solutions for Internet cloud computing and big data basic services. It is committed to building a multi-cloud, multi-network, and multi-terminal digital industry ecological platform, forming a digital industry innovation and collaborative ecosystem with cloud computing data centers as the foundation, a global cloud-network integrated data transmission network as the link, and diversified industry technology application scenarios as the innovation engine.

Since its listing, Aofei Data has completed two additional issuances and one convertible bond refinancing. Together with the IPO fundraising, the company has raised a total of 2.637 billion yuan.

Correspondingly, since its listing, Aofei Data has distributed a total of approximately 100 million yuan in cash dividends, and the dividend financing ratio is only 3.79%.

What has attracted much attention is that the major shareholders of Aofei Data have frequently planned to transfer shares by agreement.

The controlling shareholder of Aofei Data is Guangzhou Haomeng Computer Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Haomeng Technology"). The company's actual controller Feng Kang holds 90% of the shares of Haomeng Technology.

At the beginning of its listing, Haomeng Technology held 46.46% of Aofei Data's shares. By the end of the first quarter of this year, its shareholding ratio was 28.18%, a decrease of 18.28 percentage points. In addition to the dilution due to refinancing, it was also related to its agreement to transfer shares.

In June 2022, Haomeng Technology transferred 37 million shares of Aofei Data (accounting for about 5.39% of the company's total share capital) to He Liejun and Song Yangyang respectively, with a transfer price of 9.50 yuan per share, and a total cash out of 703 million yuan. The share transfer agreement was successfully completed.

In March 2023, Aofei Data announced that Haomeng Technology intends to transfer its 34.55 million shares of Aofei Data (accounting for 5.0001% of the company's total share capital) to the company's then-secretary He Yuliang at a price of 11.70 yuan per share through an agreement transfer, with a total transaction price of 404 million yuan. Three months later, Aofei Data disclosed that Haomeng Technology intends to transfer its 47.68 million shares of Aofei Data (accounting for 5% of the company's total share capital) to Qianshang Investment at a price of 10 yuan per share through an agreement transfer, with a total transfer price of approximately 477 million yuan.

However, in the end, neither of these two agreement transfers were completed.