Miao Conference & Exhibition "Midlife Stall": Cash on Hand Under Pressure, Stories Hard to Deliver | Financial Report Review

Source: Titanium Media

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On the evening of March 25, the “First Exhibition and Conference Stock” Miao Exhibition (300795.SZ) released its 2025 annual report, achieving total revenue of 785 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.45%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 137 million yuan, down 11.89% year-on-year, continuing its downward trend.

The “abandon the car to protect the general” strategy of price cuts and downgrades has caused significant declines in the company’s non-recurring profit and cash flow performance, with the profitability and “self-sustaining” ability of its core business weakening simultaneously.

At the end of last year, under pressure in its main business, the company chose to raise funds in Hong Kong to seek new momentum — but how a typical service company with a declining profit trend and an unfulfilled digital story can effectively tell its “new story” in the Hong Kong stock market remains the real challenge.

Significant decline in non-recurring profit and deterioration of operating cash flow

Miao Exhibition stated that its net profit attributable to shareholders for the year was 137 million yuan, down 11.89% year-on-year, mainly due to the cancellation of exhibition projects, lowered participation thresholds, and increased R&D investment.

Source: Company Announcement

Specifically, this was a dual squeeze: externally, China’s traditional export markets for foreign trade enterprises continued to face pressure, and some overseas exhibition projects were adjusted. The India exhibitions scheduled for June and December, and the US exhibition in September, were canceled successively due to changes in international trade situations, affecting the company’s annual exhibition plans.

Internally, “to respond to the national policy of stabilizing foreign trade and to help foreign trade enterprises cope with operational pressures, the company moderately lowered exhibition participation thresholds, which had a short-term impact on profitability. In addition, the company continued to increase R&D investment in the AI Smart Exhibition system and overseas marketing efforts, laying a foundation for long-term development,” Miao Exhibition explained.

As a result, the company’s operating cash flow net decreased from 168 million yuan to 99.57 million yuan, a sharp decline of 40.9%, mainly due to two factors: subsidiary Ningbo FanAo developed international logistics business, resulting in large accounts receivable, with longer payment cycles and slow cash recovery, with Q4 accounts receivable increasing by 892% year-on-year; cash paid for goods and services increased by about 20%, and inventory capital was also increased.

Looking ahead, the company’s non-recurring net profit has already decreased by about 20% in 2024 compared to the previous year, and is expected to continue declining by 23.58% in 2025, indicating that the company has moved from a high-profitability period into a more moderate or even downward profit normalization:

Overall, the exhibition market is expected to stabilize by 2025. According to the 36th “Global Exhibition Barometer” (published in January 2026, based on surveys of 378 companies across 57 countries and regions conducted in December 2025) by the International Exhibition Industry Association (UFI), the activity level, revenue structure, and profitability of the global exhibition market remain generally steady. In terms of market size, 47% of surveyed companies reported an increase of over 5% in exhibition activities in their countries or regions compared to 2024, 42% reported stable activity levels, and only 10% reported a decline of more than 5%, indicating that the global exhibition industry has largely shaken off post-pandemic recovery volatility and entered a phase of steady growth.

UFI Global Exhibition Barometer (36th Edition)

The company’s main business is also becoming more differentiated: self-organized exhibitions contributed 90% of revenue, up 5.79% year-on-year, with gross profit margin decreasing by 2.19%; agency exhibition income increased by 5.91% year-on-year; while digital exhibitions and other income plummeted by 57.32%.

In 2020, Miao Exhibition launched the world’s first digital exhibition product in the exhibition industry, “Online Exhibition Max,” initiating digital marketing transformation. Today, the proportion of digital exhibitions has shrunk to just 0.87%.

Raising funds in Hong Kong, with a gap between prospects and confidence

Amid slowing core business growth, pressure on non-recurring profit, and deteriorating operating cash flow, Miao Exhibition’s choice is to accelerate fundraising and seek new momentum in the Hong Kong stock market, with a listing application submitted to HKEX in December 2025.

Holding the title of “China’s No.1 overseas exhibition organization,” Miao Exhibition’s new “story” focuses on digitalization and intelligence. The prospectus shows that in early 2025, Miao Exhibition launched AI Smart Exhibition, an application paired with AI glasses, with multiple functions including matching search, real-time translation, meeting notes, content generation, data visualization, and customer management.

Miao Exhibition stated: “With the help of AI tools, we assist exhibitors in achieving precise customer acquisition, efficient negotiations, effective participation, and long-term customer relationship management, greatly improving the conversion rate and transaction rate of foreign trade orders at exhibitions.”

However, in terms of performance growth, especially in “other businesses,” the results of digital transformation in 2025 are limited.

Regarding its goal of “integrating exhibition services, AI technology, and supply chain services into intelligent solutions,” the company’s R&D efforts are relatively modest. From 2022 to 2025, R&D expenditures were 15.54 million yuan, 17.67 million yuan, 16.42 million yuan, and 19.66 million yuan respectively, with R&D expense ratios of only 4.46%, 2.12%, 2.19%, and 2.5%.

Currently, the “revenge demand” driven by the post-pandemic recovery of cross-border exhibitions has diminished, and the industry has returned to a cycle closely tied to the overall foreign trade environment. For companies mainly engaged in overseas self-organized exhibitions with long project cycles and upfront costs, a weakening external trade environment or increased geopolitical disturbances can amplify performance volatility.

This means that its IPO in Hong Kong will no longer be simply valued as a “high-growth company,” but more as a cyclical service stock with stable dividend-paying ability but moderate to low growth. It also implies that even if successfully listed, the company’s issuance pricing and fundraising scale will face certain constraints. (Text by Company Observation, author: Huang Tian, editor: Cao Shengyuan)

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