Noah Holdings Limited (NOAH) on Q1 2021 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Operator: Good evening and welcome to the Noah Holdings 1Q ‘21 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Jingbo Wang. Please go ahead.
Jingbo Wang: For the teleconference agenda today, I will first introduce the overall performance of NOAH in the first quarter of 2021. The development of our major business segments and the strategy of the Group. Then talk about the changes and progress of NOAH’s management thinking from product-driven to client-oriented. We will then brief you on Noah’s planning to purchase a headquarter premises located in the courtroom of Hongqiao CBD in Shanghai. After that, please welcome Pan Qing to introduce the financial results of the quarter, followed by the Q&A.
Grant Pan: Thank you, Sonia. Thank you, Chairlady and key investors and analysts, good morning. Very excited to share with you another record setting quarter, in which, we have accomplished new heights across various financial and operational metrics, including revenues, profits, client activities, transaction value and elite RM retention rate. As our client investment passion and confidence and economic outlook continues recovering, and overall team morale continues growing, benefiting from the implementation of various new organizational improvements, and the upgraded client service model as part of overall strategic transformation so far. I’m also happy to share with you that we were ahead of the schedule to meet the full year non-GAAP net income guidance of RMB 1.2 billion to RMB 1.3 billion as we concluded this quarter with a record high non-GAAP net income of RMB 461.9 million, mainly due to also record high performance based income of RMB 403.1 million accompanied with growth across other revenue segments. Now please let me walk you through more detailed results of the first quarter. We recorded net revenues of RMB 1.2 billion, which was unprecedented for a single quarter since listing. This was mainly contributed by performance based income of RMB 403.1 million also record high, a result of the strong performances of the public securities products we have placed for our clients in the past, accounting for over 60% of the total performance based income during the quarter. Just to give you a rough idea, what this means for our clients. For every million of performance based income we earn, based on our average sharing with the GPs, our clients would have made RMB 20 million of investment return above the hurdle rate of return after accounting for the performance based fee charged by the GPs.
Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Your first question comes from Emma Liu with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Emma Liu: Congratulations on the effort. Very good first quarter results. But my question is, why don’t you revise at your non-GAAP net income guidance for the four years? Because according to the current guidance, it seems that the implied for the next three quarters the non-GAAP net income were declined close to 13% year-over-year. So what factors hold you back from revising to the non-GAAP net income guidance? Thank you.
Grant Pan: Okay, thank you, Emma. That’s a very fair question. First off, obviously very happy to see the results in the first quarter. But at the same time, we’re also conscious about the volatility, especially in the Asia market in China, for the outlook of the rest of the year. So for that, you know, as much more confidence with our top line, were still pretty, I guess will be pretty reasonably conservative in terms for the expectation of the super overperformance for the rest of the year for the market, which you know, in turn, obviously, will impact on the transaction values or clients investment passion. And, two, as we have mentioned, we continue to invest in our strategic initiatives, especially in this year, it’s a very critical year to open up for transformation. And some of the investments actually are in talents and some of them are in you know, technology. So the full year impact has not shown in the first quarter and we expect that the investment continue to ramp up for the rest of the year. So from that standpoint, we’re pretty confident applying growth but at the same time we want to also make sure that we have enough room for the investment in our strategic initiatives. So Chairlady has also supplemented you know, in the last few quarters when we’re going through our transformation strategy, especially the upgrade our management and also organization capabilities. We’re trying to, I guess transform from a you know, so called startup company into a really midlevel – midsized level type of you know modern corporation and organization, which actually requires heavier investments on the management and organizational resources.
Emma Liu: So, thank you so much for answering my previous question. And I have a follow – actually two follow-up questions. Could you please introduce the latest progress in the second quarter, including major business metrics and certainly many domestic Chinese banks are paying more attention to the wealth management sector, because this is a very promising sector. So do you have sales increasing competition from Chinese banks and how will you respond to them? Thank you.
Jingbo Wang: So yeah, to address your second question first, Emma, that, as you know, we’re always in a very highly competitive market and because seems that the transformation or the shift really in the regulatory and policy environment seems we’re facing more and more security brokerage firms as well as banks in this particular market space. But from a standpoint, Noah has already moved on to stage 2.0 in terms of wealth management industry that it seemed that the banks are you know, just starting their stage in terms of you know, designing the right products and product-driven type strategy in wealth management, while Noah has moved on to really trying our best to match our clients’ need with the right products and services as well as you know, the agent and sales network that serve them. So we’re really moving on to the right direction and moving into the right stage obviously initial part will be tough and difficult. But we’re very confident that we’re actually walking on the right track. Yeah, so to add a little more color onto that, especially you elaborate what we mean about, you know, our bottom line is for commercial survive or commercial success is that we always try to ensure that we have a higher standard in terms of compliance than what the regulators have put on – put out for the industry. For example, we’re being very selective in terms of our acceptance, with screening, the clients’ profiles and we actually will take on some clients and at the same time, we’ll give up on some clients. Just want to make sure that we are always, you know, try our best to place the right products for the right clients at the right place. But it seems that our competitors aren’t, you know, as the new arising competitors that you mentioned, Emma, is still trying to copy probably our older sort of compensation scheme for example, in their salesforce, when we have actually moved on several generations, several upgrades on the compensation schemes for the Salesforce. So we believe that, you know, we’re ahead of the curve. But I want to make sure also, we understand, you know, initial status – initial part will be tough already for the challenge. And to your first question in terms of the operational situation for the second quarter, you know, obviously, I can’t tell you too much about the numbers but we’ll continue to market Gopher’s target return products, which is met with pretty good acceptance by the clients, I’m pretty confident that the numbers will show up in the first quarter – in the second quarter. And also, you know, we continue to host actually a little smaller conferences in Macau for the oversea insurance products, and I’m pretty happy to see the results, especially the positive results on the top line and the profit.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back to Mr. Pan for closing remarks.
Grant Pan:
A - Jingbo Wang:
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
