Changjiang Commercial Daily News Changjiang Commercial Daily reporter Zhang Pei
Huayou Cobalt (603799.SH), the leader of the 100 billion cobalt industry, continues to increase its performance.
On the evening of July 11, Huayou Cobalt released its semi-annual performance forecast for 2022. It is expected that the profit in the first half of the year will exceed 2.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 49.86%.
In recent years, thanks to the continuous and rapid growth of demand for new energy lithium battery materials, Huayou Cobalt's main products have boomed in production and sales, and both volume and price have risen.
The stock price and performance are flying together. At the close on July 12, Huayou Cobalt reported 88.69 yuan per share, with a market value of 141.7 billion yuan.
On the same day as the disclosure of the performance forecast, Huayou Cobalt also disclosed the result announcement of the first grant of restricted stocks to the incentive objects.The company awarded 10,487,900 shares to 1,170 people on June 23 at a grant price of 32.35 yuan per share.Judging from the closing price on July 12, this equity incentive has floated 174%.
However, it is worth noting that, according to the performance forecast, the lower limit of Huayou Cobalt's net profit in the second quarter is 994 million yuan, which is down from the first quarter.According to the equity incentive target, in 2022, the company's net profit value should not be less than 5 billion yuan.
Second-quarter net profit likely to decline QoQ
Huayou Cobalt is mainly engaged in the R&D and manufacturing of new energy lithium battery materials and cobalt new material products, and has an integrated industrial chain from the development of cobalt and nickel resources to the manufacture of lithium battery materials.
Affected by the cyclical impact of cobalt and copper products, from 2015 to 2019, although the company's operating income continued to grow, both net profit and non-net profit fluctuated greatly.Since 2021, thanks to the continuous and rapid growth of the demand for new energy lithium battery materials, the production and sales of Huayou Cobalt's main products have increased, the sales prices of products have also continued to rise, and profitability has increased significantly.
In 2021, the company will achieve an operating income of 35.317 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 66.69%; a net profit of 3.898 billion yuan and a non-net profit of 3.853 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 234.59% and 242.84%.This year's net profit far exceeded the company's combined net profit over the past three years.
In the first half of this year, Huayou Cobalt continued its rapid growth in performance.According to the performance forecast, the company expects to achieve a net profit of 2.2 billion yuan to 2.6 billion yuan in the first half of 2022, an increase of 732 million yuan to 1.132 billion yuan year-on-year, an increase of 49.86% to 77.11%; it is expected to deduct non-net profit of 2.11 billion yuan. To 2.51 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 694 million yuan to 1.094 billion yuan, an increase of 49.01% to 77.26%.
For this achievement, Huayou Cobalt said that the main reason is that the company's business strategy of high-end products and industrial integration has achieved remarkable results.In the first half of 2022, the demand for new energy lithium battery materials continued to grow rapidly. The production and sales of the company's nickel products and new energy lithium battery materials achieved different levels of growth. The prices of cobalt and nickel battery metals also rose significantly compared with the same period last year, and the main products were profitable. capacity is better than the same period last year.
However, a reporter from the Changjiang Commercial Daily also noticed that the growth rate of Huayou Cobalt's performance in the second quarter may have declined month-on-month.
In the first quarter of this year, Huayou Cobalt achieved a net profit of 1.206 billion yuan and a non-net profit of 1.19 billion yuan, an increase of 84.4% and 80.6% year-on-year.Based on this calculation, its net profit in the second quarter was 994 million yuan to 1.394 billion yuan, and the deducted non-net profit was 920 million yuan to 1.32 billion yuan. The lower limit of the forecast fell from the first quarter.
Equity incentive has floated 174%
While the performance has achieved rapid growth, Huayou Cobalt's dividends to shareholders have not soared at the same time.
Huayou Cobalt's 2021 profit distribution plan shows that the company plans to distribute cash dividends of 3 yuan (tax included) for every 10 shares to all shareholders, with a total proposed cash dividend of 366 million yuan; Shareholders transfer 3 shares for every 10 shares.
It is worth noting that the amount of Huayou Cobalt's cash dividends this time only accounted for 9.4% of the company's net profit for the year, while the company's cash dividends in 2020 will be about 243 million yuan, accounting for 20.83% of the company's net profit for the year.
In response to this situation, Huayou Cobalt stated that the company's retained undistributed profits will continue to be used for the company's business development, to ensure the smooth progress of the company's future industrial planning projects, to supplement the company's operating capital, and to support the company's new product research and development and market expansion. Improve the company's core competitiveness and consolidate the company's leading position in the industry.
Since the beginning of this year, Huayou Cobalt has indeed frequently invested in large-scale construction in order to expand its production capacity.As far as the latest fixed increase and expansion project is concerned, on June 19, Huayou Cobalt announced that it plans to invest in a joint venture to build a nickel-cobalt hydroxide wet-process project with an annual output of 120,000 tons of nickel metal in Huashan Nickel-Cobalt (Indonesia) Co., Ltd. Joint venture to build Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd Arcadia Lithium Mine Development Project and Guangxi Huayou Lithium Industry Company’s battery-grade lithium salt project with an annual output of 50,000 tons.The total amount of the three investments exceeds 21 billion yuan.
Huayou Cobalt also put forward a fixed increase plan of 17.7 billion yuan, of which 12.2 billion yuan was raised for the nickel-cobalt hydroxide wet process project with an annual output of 120,000 tons of nickel metal in Huashan Nickel and Cobalt Company in Indonesia, and 1.5 billion yuan was used for raising funds. Guangxi Huayou Lithium Industry Co., Ltd. has an annual output of 50,000 tons of battery-grade lithium salt project.
In the case of rapid growth in performance and continuous expansion of production capacity, Huayou Cobalt seems to be full of confidence in its future performance.
On the same day as the disclosure of the first half of the performance forecast, Huayou Cobalt also announced the results of the first grant of restricted stocks to the incentive objects. A total of 1170 people granted 10.4879 million shares, and the grant price was set at 32.35 yuan per share.
At the close on July 12, Huayou Cobalt reported 88.69 yuan per share, and this equity incentive has floated 174%.
It is reported that the conditions for the release of restricted stocks granted by the incentive plan for the first time require the operating income in 2021 as the base, and the operating income growth rate from 2022 to 2024 should not be lower than 15%, 30%, 45%, or net profit. The value is not less than 5 billion yuan, 11 billion yuan, 18 billion yuan.Judging from the lifting of restrictions on sales, Huayou Cobalt seems to be quite confident in the company's performance growth.
