news

interface news reporter | white sail

on the evening of september 9, jitu express (1519.hk) announced that it had obtained nearly 9 billion yuan in term loan financing, with the "financiers" coming from multiple banking institutions.

according to the announcement released by jitu express, jitu express' wholly-owned subsidiary huaxing group, jitu express and several member companies of jitu express have entered into a financing agreement with the original lender. huaxing group is the borrower, and jitu express and several member companies of jitu express are guarantors.

according to the financing agreement, the original lenders, a number of banks and financial institutions, agreed to provide term loan financing to the borrower. this financing includes three tranches, namely, a maximum of us$674 million (approximately rmb 4.804 billion), a maximum of hkd 1.362 billion (approximately rmb 1.245 billion), and a maximum of rmb 2.87135 billion in offshore and domestic rmb financing, with a term of 36 months from the date of issuance of the first loan. according to the latest exchange rate, the three tranches total more than rmb 8.9 billion.

the original lenders may involve 20 banks. according to industry sources cited by southern metropolis daily, 20 banks participated in the financing.in addition to chinese, hong kong and american capital, there are also european, southeast asian and other diversified banking institutions participating. however, regarding this information, jitu express told jiemian news that "the announcement shall prevail."

li jie, the controlling shareholder of jitu express, plays an important role in this financing. the above financing agreement stipulates that if li jie of jitu express no longer directly or indirectly exercises or controls the exercise of the single largest proportion of voting rights, or no longer has the right to issue instructions on the company's operations, management and financial policies, and the majority of lenders under the financing agreement request and issue a notice of not less than 10 business days, then the available loan amount under the financing agreement will be cancelled immediately, each financing available for further use will also be terminated immediately, and all loans, accrued interest and other amounts will become due and payable immediately.

li jie is not only the controlling shareholder of jitu express, but also the founder of the company, as well as its chairman of the board and ceo, holding 55.29% of the shares.

in the 2024 interim performance report released by jitu express, jitu express gave a detailed explanation of li jie's position arrangement and voice, saying that according to the code provisions of part ii of the corporate governance manualarticle c.2.1 states that the roles of chairman and chief executive officer should not be performed by the same person. li jie’s concurrent roles as chairman of the board and ceo deviate from this article.

the above content also mentioned that li jie has rich experience in the group's business operations and management."the board believes that having li jie serve as both the board chairman and ceo will help ensure consistent leadership of the group and facilitate more effective and efficient formulation of overall strategic planning," jitu express said in its interim financial report.

in the years that li jie led jitu to sprint into the global market, jitu obtained several rounds of financing, and before its listing, three rounds of financing amounted to more than us$1 billion. these funds helped jitu quickly grab a place in the fiercely competitive market environment in the past, and also promoted jitu's successful listing in hong kong in october 2023.

since then, jitu, which was originally eager to expand its market, has begun to pay more attention to the quality of its earnings and hasoperating profit turned from loss to profit, achieving a profit of us$115 million, and net profit turned from a loss of us$667 million in the same period last year to a profit of us$31 million.

although it has been successfully listed and profitable, jitu express still needs a lot of capital support to expand its business in the three major markets around the world. jitu express stated in the financing announcement that the above loan will mainly be used to refinance huaxing group’s existing debts andgeneral business working capital purposes.

when it went public in october last year, jitu had raised about hk$3.5 billion, mainly forexpand the logistics network, upgrade infrastructure, strengthen sorting and warehousing capabilities and capacity, explore new markets and expand service scope, research and development and technological innovation, etc.

in may this year,e-trade capital and the middle east consortium have invested tens of millions of dollars in jitu middle east. the funds will be used to optimize and upgrade the saudi arabia network, strengthen its international presence, and upgrade its localization strategy in the middle east.

in addition, according to jitu's interim report, its capital expenditure in the first half of the year was mainly used to invest in properties, plants and equipment, and intangible assets. in the six months ending june 30, 2024, jitu's total capital expenditure was us$165 million.

jitu was founded in 2015 and officially entered the chinese market in 2021, setting off a "bloody storm" in the express delivery industry.jitu’s total revenue reached us$4.862 billion, a year-on-year increase of 20.6%.during the period, jitu handled a total of 11.01 billion express parcels, a year-on-year increase of 38.3%.

at present, taking advantage of the opportunities of global e-commerce development, jitu has expanded its business territory to 13 countries including indonesia, vietnam, malaysia, the philippines, thailand, cambodia, singapore, china, saudi arabia, the united arab emirates, mexico, brazil, and egypt.

among them, the southeast asian market is the "backbone" of jitu, contributing us$1.52 billion in revenue and us$287 million in gross profit to jitu in the first half of this year; the chinese market contributed the largest volume of business parcels, reaching 8.836 billion express parcels in the first half of the year, with revenue of us$2.998 billion; during the same period, jitu processed 136 million parcels in new markets, and its gross profit margin increased from -17.7% in the same period last year to 12%.