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ATA Creativity Global (AACG)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 31, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome, everyone, to the ATA Creativity Global 2019 Fourth Quarter and Year End Financial Results Conference Call hosted by Carolyne Sohn. [Operator Instructions] My name is Krisz, and I'm your event manager today. And now I would like to pass the call over to Carolyne. Please go ahead ma’am.

Carolyne Sohn

Analyst

Thank you, Chris and hello everyone. Thank you for joining us. The press release announcing ATA Creativity Global’s or ACG’s results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2019, is available at the IR Section of the Company’s website at www.atai.net.cn. As part of this conference call, the Company has an accompanying slide presentation available on its website. A replay of this broadcast will also be made available at ACG’s website for the next 90 days. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call and any accompanying information discussed herein contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable as of today, those statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ dramatically from those projected. There can be no assurance that those expectations will prove to be correct. Information about the risks associated with investing in ACG is included in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we encourage you to review before making an investment decision. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, changes in market conditions, or otherwise, except as required by law. Regarding the disclaimer language, I would also like to refer you to Slide 2 of the conference call presentation for further information. All U.S. dollar amounts in this conference call, relating to financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2019, are converted from RMB using an exchange rate of RMB6.9618 to US$1.00, the noon buying rate as of December 31, 2019. All historical conversions are accurate as of the time reported, unless otherwise noted. The Company reports its financial results under U.S. GAAP in RMB, and all percentages calculated in the presentation are based on RMB unless otherwise noted. For those of you following along with the accompanying PowerPoint presentation, there is an overview of the Company on Slide 3. In addition, we are more than happy to take investor questions through our webcast portal or via email to the Company. On today’s call, the Company’s CFO Ms. Amy Tung will provide a brief overview of operating and financial highlights for the fourth quarter of 2019; and then ACG’s Chairman and CEO Mr. Kevin Ma and President, Mr. Jun Zhang will conclude the remarks with a discussion of Huanqiuyimeng’s latest developments, the Company’s outlook as well as its long-term growth strategy before opening the floor for questions. With that, I’ll turn the call over to ACG’s CFO, Ms. Amy Tung. Please go ahead, Amy.

Amy Tung

Analyst

Thank you Caroline and welcome everyone. Good evening to those in America. We appreciate everyone's time. To those of you following along with the presentation, I will begin on Slide 5, which was operating highlights for the fourth quarter of 2019. After completing the acquisition of the remaining 12.54% equity interest in Beijing Huanqiuyimeng Education Consulting Corp., or for short, Huanqiuyimeng, in September 2019, we felt it was appropriate to change our corporate name and ticker symbol as a reflection of the significant changes to our company. We became ATA Creativity Global and our stock ticker stock ticker symbol also changed to AACG with DS commencing trading under the new symbol as of market open on October 17, 2019. In December we completed a private placement with CL-TCC, a company focused on investments in the culture and education, which will result in gross proceeds of approximately US$10 million from the sale off about 5.7 million common shares of the company. We plan to use these proceeds to fund day-to-day operations and our M&A activities. Details of this transaction can be found on the Form 6-K we filed on December 18, 2019. It is important to note that our results for the fourth quarter of 2019 incorporates the full quarter’s results from Huanqiuyimeng while third quarter 2019 results incorporate only about two months of the results. In this regard, we are pleased to report 19.3% year-over-year growth in credit hours delivered for Huanqiuyimeng’s portfolio training programs from approximately 43,750 credit hours in Q4 2018 to approximately 52,200 in Q4 2019. We are pleased to have completed the organizational restructuring and integration of Huanqiuyimeng following the acquisition. We have several enrollment initiatives in place but wanted to take a moment to address concerns surrounding the coronavirus outbreak and how it has affected…

Kevin Ma

Analyst

Thank you, Amy. We are very pleased to have completed the organizational restructuring and integration of Huanqiuyimeng into ACG operations, while we continue to focus on growing enrollments at Huanqiuyimeng and looking at additional opportunities in the international education markets. Our attention has constantly been on how we can continue to serve and meet the immediate needs of our students during the coronavirus outbreak. As Amy noted earlier, we continue to monitor these developments very closely and are keeping the health and the safety of our students, staff and the personnel of our org our first priority. I would now like to hand the floor over to Jun Zhang, ACG's President, to provide an update on our strategic growth initiatives for Huanqiuyimeng. Jun will make his remarks in Mandarin, which will be followed by an English translation.

Jun Zhang

Analyst

[Foreign Language] Thank you.

Carolyne Sohn

Analyst

Thank you, Kevin. Slide 13 lists our overall growth initiatives, which we discussed in some detail on our last earnings call. The coronavirus outbreak has demonstrated to us how critical developing and implementing technologies to allow for remote learning is in situations like this. Because we have systems in place, Huanqiuyimeng has been able to operate business as usual for the most part when it comes to serving our students. We will continue working to improve on these technologies and systems to ensure that our students are learning with the latest tools and technology available. As we work to maximize capacity at our existing centers throughout China, we are also exploring the possibility of partnerships with institutions primarily in Europe and the United States to serve as a bridge for students who require additional flexibility, time and support before moving forward with an education at a recognized university or institute. We look forward to sharing more about these efforts in the coming months. While 2020 opened with some unforeseen challenges, we are well equipped to continue supporting our students as best as we can under the circumstances. We continue working on our growth initiatives and believe we are well positioned to become one of the largest providers of quality art and creativity education and study abroad experiences in China. Kevin?

Kevin Ma

Analyst

Thanks, Jun and Carolyne. To conclude, we are in a good place with Huanqiuyimeng fully integrated into our reorganized operations. However, we continue to look for options to expand to the future. This acquisition marked our first step forward in our long-term growth strategy of becoming a leading international education service provider with a special focus on the rapidly expanding art and creativity education market. We continue exploring our M&A opportunities within the education space that may be a good fit with our business portfolio and are excited about the growth opportunities we see. We are pleased with what we have accomplished thus far but look forward to serving more students who are looking to pursue careers in arts and other creative fields. Finally, I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to all of our employees, associates, family and friends of our company for their extra efforts and support over the past several weeks. It has not gone unnoticed. With that, operator, let's open it up for questions.

Operator

Operator

There are no questions in the queue on the audio. [Operator Instructions].

Kevin Ma

Analyst

Thanks again to all of you for joining us. If anyone has questions for us, please feel free to reach out directly to us or our Investor Relations firm, The Equity Group. We look forward to speaking with you all during our next quarterly call and, as always, welcome any investors to our office in Beijing. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Everyone, that concludes our call for today. You may now disconnect. Thank you so much for joining, and have a great day. Bye-bye.