Extravagant dividends
Legend has it that Empress Dowager Cixi had bleeding symptoms when she was pregnant. Although she had many visits to famous doctors, she never got better. In the end, Chen Zongyi, head butler from Dong'a, Shandong, suggested taking locally produced Ejiao for treatment.
After taking Dong'e Ejiao, Cixi finally stopped bleeding and healed, and successfully gave birth to Zai Chun, the later emperor of Tongzhi.
As a result, the reputation of Donga Ejiao as having curative effects such as “safe pregnancy” spread.
Whether Donga Ejiao, which uses donkey skin as the main ingredient, has legendary curative effects is unknown, but Donga Ejiao (000432.SZ) has indeed become an important player in the women's supplements market by making Ejiao into various products such as Ejiao cake and Ejiao paste.
On March 22, Donga Ejiao released its 2023 financial report, showing that current revenue and net profit to mother were 4.715 billion yuan and 1.151 billion yuan respectively, up 16.66% and 47.55% year-on-year respectively.
Among them, Ejiao and its products contributed more than 90% of revenue, generating 4.364 billion yuan in revenue in 2023, an increase of 17.98% over the previous year, which is 9.03 percentage points higher than the year-on-year increase in 2022.
Maintaining a double-digit growth rate has basically been the norm for Donga Ejiao's performance in recent years.
It is worth mentioning that Donga Ejiao paid a huge dividend.
According to the profit distribution plan, Donga Ejiao distributed a cash dividend of 1.78 yuan per share to all shareholders based on 644 million shares at the end of 2023. The total amount reached 1,146 billion yuan, accounting for 99.57% of the current net profit to mother.
This is not the first time that Donga Ejiao has paid a large dividend. The dividend amount in 2022 also reached 759 million yuan, accounting for 97.31% of the net profit returned to the mother in the current period.
Regarding the large dividends, Donga Ejiao also stated that it had no major financial expenses.
“If the company's development stage is mature and there are no major capital expenditure arrangements, cash dividends should account for at least 80% of the current profit distribution when profit distribution is carried out.” Donga Ejiao pointed out.
However, even with large dividends, Donga Ejiao's consolidated undistributed profit in 2023 can still reach 8.062 billion yuan.
Donga Ejiao probably doesn't want to “mess around” anymore.
In 2023, Donga Ejiao's financial expenses are still negative, reaching -93 billion yuan. The main reason is that interest income far exceeds interest expenses.
Interest income reached 97 million yuan during the same period, accounting for 8.43% of net profit attributable to mother.