Earnings Labs

Antelope Enterprise Holdings Limited (AEHL)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Mon, May 15, 2017

$0.51

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is [indiscernible] and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year End 2016 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now turn the conference over to David Rudnick. Please go ahead.

David Rudnick

Analyst

Thank you, [indiscernible]. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and good evening to those of you who are joining us from China. Welcome to China Ceramics’ fourth quarter and fiscal year end 2016 earnings conference call. With us today are China Ceramics’ Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jia Dong Huang and his Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Edmund Hen. Before I turn the call over to Mr. Huang, I would like to address forward-looking statements that maybe discussed in the call. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and include among others those regarding revenue, operating expenses, other increment expense, taxes and future business outlook. Actual performance, outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements. The company claims the Safe Harbor protections for such forward-looking statements as contemplated under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please refer to the documents filed by the company with the SEC specifically the most recent reports on Forms 20-F and 6-K which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information which speak as of their respective dates. On today’s call, we reference certain non-GAAP prevention measures. In accordance with SEC rules, we have provided a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release and financial supplements, which could be down on the Investor Relations portion of the company’s corporate website. To supplement the financial results presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP, management will make reference to, among others, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, which we will call by its abbreviated name EBITDA. EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure, reconciled from net income which the company believes provides meaningful additional information to better understand its operating performance. A table reconciling net income to EBITDA can be found in the earnings press release issued earlier today. And now, it’s my pleasure to turn the call over to China Ceramic’s Chairman and CEO, Mr. Jia Don Huang, and China Ceramic’s CFO, Mr. Edmund Hen. Ms. Dai will be translating for Mr. Huang. Mr. Huang, you may proceed.

Jia Dong Huang

Analyst

Thank you, David. On behalf of the company, I would like to welcome everyone to our fourth quarter and fiscal year end 2016 earnings conference call. We continued to experience challenging market conditions in both the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2016 due to macroeconomic factors that have continued to negatively impact the China real estate and building materials markets. However, excluding the impact of the impairment charges, inventory write-downs and increases in the provision for bad debt taken during the period, we were able to generate $8.4 million in EBITDA for fiscal year 2016. In addition, in order to generate sales and move inventory, beginning on October 1, 2016, we instituted a 20% reduction in the prices of slow moving products which helped to turn some of our inventory into cash. This price reduction led to a 35% increase in our sales volume in the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2015. We are also looking for ways to operate more efficiently by running production lines concurrently with the generation of customer orders. For the full year 2016, we saw our sales volume decline by 13% due to an overall contraction in customer demand. The building materials sector in the PRC is experiencing an overall retrenchment with small players exiting our space due to competitive pressures and environmental compliance regulations. As inventories in our sector work through their distribution channels, we look to regain the relatively stable pricing that we have achieved historically and generate sales volume at our normal pricing levels. We believe that our strong customer relationships and premier products position us for a potential turnaround in the market. During the fourth quarter, we utilized production facilities capable of producing 37 million square meters of ceramic tiles per year out of the company’s effective annual production capacity of 62 million square meters. As we have in past quarters, we maintained a reduced utilization of existing plant capacity based on the current market conditions to keep our operating costs low and we will bring additional capacity online when we see an increase in demand for our products. Looking ahead to 2017, we believe that the operating environment will slowly begin to improve. Should this occur, we believe that we can leverage our market positioning to maintain our existing customers and win new customers. We expect the consolidation trend among larger property developers to continue which will benefit the company since our manufacturing scale and infrastructure enable us to effectively serve these large enterprises. In the long run, we believe that real estate is the key sector of China’s economy and that the real estate market supply and demand dynamics will stabilize to present us with sustainable growth opportunities. With that, I would like to turn over the call to the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Edmund Hen who will discuss the company’s fourth quarter earnings results in more detail. Thank you.

Edmund Hen

Analyst

Thank you, Mr. Huang. I will now move on to a more detailed discussion of our financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2016. Our revenue for the fourth quarter end December 31, 2016 was RMB201.9 million or $28.3 million, a decrease of 3.1% from RMB208.3 million or $31.6 million in the fourth quarter 2015. The year-over-year increase in revenue was primarily due to a 28.2% decrease in our average selling price in the fourth quarter of 2016 to RMB22.4 or $3.2 as compared to RMB31.2 or $4.1 for the fourth quarter of 2015, partially offset by 24.8% increase in sales volume of 9 million square meters of ceramics tiles in the fourth quarter of 2016 from 6.7 million square meters in the fourth quarter in 2015. Gross loss for the fourth quarter end December 31, 2016 was RMB87.1 million or $13.2 million as compared to profit of RMB29.5 million or $4.5 million for the fourth quarter of 2015. Gross profit margin was a negative 43.1% for the fourth quarter end December 31, 2016 compared to 14.2% for the fourth quarter of 2015. The year-over-year reduction in gross profit margin was primarily due to a 28.2% decrease in the average selling price of the company’s ceramic tiles attributable to our having instituted a 20% reduction in the selling price of slow moving inventory beginning on October 1, 2016, due to challenging market conditions and an RMB59.4 million or $8.9 million write down of inventory in the fourth quarter of 2016. Other income for the fourth quarter end December 31, 2016 was RMB3.5 million or $0.5 million as compared to RMB0.1 million or $0.01 million for the fourth quarter of 2015. The year-over-year increase in other income was mainly caused by rental income of RMB3.5 million or $0.5 million…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Howard Flinker with Flinker & Company.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

Could you please tell me what the effect will be on you and your local competitors of the increase in the environmental tax coming in January I believe?

Edmund Hen

Analyst

What we have seen is the more and more small players to combat [indiscernible] after this Chinese New Year.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

And that will go up January 1, another time will it not?

Edmund Hen

Analyst

We haven’t. This is not officially important to us yet.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

While other industries have told me that, that’s going to happen. So maybe you haven’t been told yet, if it does, could it affect some of your bigger competitors too?

Edmund Hen

Analyst

If the new commission is passed to the industry, I think everybody will have some impact of that.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

Even big guys, not just little guys?

Edmund Hen

Analyst

Even big guys, but most have the most negative impact is for the small guys.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

Sure. And you said there are some early signs that ‘17 could be better than ‘16, what makes you feel that?

Edmund Hen

Analyst

What we found probably now is the lowest point for the economy in China. So probably from 2016 next or in 2018 the environment will be better.

Howard Flinker

Analyst

Okay, those are my only questions. I will call if I have any other questions.

Edmund Hen

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] At this time there are no further questions. Excuse me, you can have another question from Zain Khan [ph] with Private Investor.

Zain Khan

Analyst

Yes. My question is do you foresee the need to raise capital in 2017 is it through debt or equity and also can you – I realized you are talking about the fourth quarter 2016, can you tell us anything yet about the first quarter of 2017 which ended on March 31 and will those earnings be released?

Edmund Hen

Analyst

We are working on the – as you know, we just released this fourth quarter of 2016 and really we will immediately work on the first quarter after that. As I see the last year enhancement data somewhere in June, so we – if we can of course we will release the first quarter as soon as possible.

Zain Khan

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] At this time there are no further questions. You may proceed with your closing remarks.

Edmund Hen

Analyst

Thank you.