[HONG KONG] China’s bubble tea market is overflowing with rivals and fierce price clashes – yet it’s set to produce another billionaire couple.
On Thursday (May 8), Auntea Jenny (Shanghai) Industrial is scheduled to start trading in Hong Kong, raising HK$273 million (S$46 million) with a listing price of HK$113.12, the top of the range. That valuation gives husband-and-wife founders, Shan Weijun and Zhou Rongrong, a combined net worth of US$1.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which is valuing their wealth for the first time. Their fortune is solely derived from their stake in Auntea Jenny.
The couple join a wave of Chinese founders who have made fortunes as fresh tea chains exploded in popularity. That includes Junjie Zhang, the billionaire founder of Chagee Holdings, who listed his tea shop chain on the Nasdaq exchange in April, and the two brothers behind Mixue Group, a brand known for US$1 bubble tea, coffee and ice cream, who amassed about US$8 billion combined after the company’s debut in Hong Kong earlier this year.
Yet, after almost a decade of rapid expansion, the competition in China’s tea-shop market has become increasingly brutal, with numerous venues spreading out on floors of city malls and street corners.
Several bubble tea IPOs have slumped soon after going public, as investors grow wary of pouring money into a saturated market.
Freshly brewed
Shan and Zhou, both 48, worked as senior sales managers at healthcare products retailer Amway (China) before starting their first Auntea Jenny milk-tea shop in November 2013 in Shanghai, according to the prospectus.
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Auntea Jenny specialises in milk tea with grain toppings and fresh fruit tea. A typical drink sells for around US$2. The chain’s stores are primarily located on the street with a small portion in shopping malls and train stations. There were more than 9,100 stores in over 300 cities in China at the end of last year, according to the prospectus. Nearly all are franchisee-run.
Like competitors Guming Holdings and Mixue Group, Auntea Jenny targets fast-growing and economically less developed markets, so-called “lower-tier cities”, with approximately 50.4 per cent of stores located in those cities in China.
But that strategy is challenging – Auntea Jenny recorded slower sales last year, which it said was in part due to increased competition.
Factors including a lack of advantage in lower-tier cities, and reliance on third-party suppliers with weak cost control will possibly make Auntea Jenny’s valuation lower than its peers, Xinyao Wang, a China health care analyst wrote in a report published on SmartKarma.
Venturing into markets outside China has become an inevitable choice for many brands as growth slows. Some rivals, such as Mixue Group, already have hundreds or even thousands of stores overseas.
Auntea Jenny has focused on South-east Asia, with 30 stores in Malaysia and plans to increase to over 100 stores in the country this year. BLOOMBERG
