Good day and welcome. Hello Bright Scholar first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal the conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to management. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator. Good morning and good evening. Welcome to Bright Scholar first fiscal quarter and November 30th, 2020 earnings call. Joining me today are Mr. Jerry He, our Executive Vice Chairman, Mr. Andy Chen, our Co-Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Dora Li, our Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, today's conference call is being broadcast live via webcast. In addition, a replay will be available on our website following the call. By now, you should have received a copy of our press release that was distributed on January 20th, 2021, after market close, Eastern Time. If you have not, it is available on the IR section of our website. Before we get started, let me remind you that today's call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the company's business plans and development, which can be identified by terminology such as may, will, expect, anticipate, aim, estimate, intend, plan, believe, potential, continue, is or are likely to, or other similar expressions. Such statements are based upon management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors. All of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the company's control, which may cause the company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Certain information regarding this and other risks, uncertainties or factors, is included in the company's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under law. During this call, we'll be referring to GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. We use certain non-GAAP measures as supplemental measures to review and assess our operating performance. These non-GAAP financial measures have limitations as analytical tools, and investors should not consider them in isolation or as a substitute for net income attributable to company or other consolidated statements of comprehensive income data prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Please note all numbers are in RMB, and all comparisons refer to year-over-year comparisons unless otherwise stated. With that, I turn the call over to our Executive Vice Chairman, Jerry He. Jerry? Thanks, Ruby. Good morning and good evening. Thank you for joining us, our first fiscal quarter 2021 conference call. Again, we appreciate your continued interest in our company. The pandemic remains a significant disruption to the global economy and our global business, in particular, our overseas K12 business. On today's call, on behalf of the senior management team, I will provide a little bit context for our fiscal 2021 first quarter performance and discuss key trends in our business. I will also highlight our strategic priority for fiscal 2021, that will further enhance our market position for long-term growth. Dora will then provide details of our business and the financial performance, and an update on our guidance. I will wrap up and then we will take your questions. For those who are new to our company, we have included in our earnings presentation, a brief corporate introduction in section one, from slide five to 11, of which you can download from our IR website. Again, all numbers are in RMB, and all comparison refer to year-over-year, unless otherwise stated. Let's start with slide 13 for the highlights of our first fiscal quarter, with detailed breakdown by respective businesses in slide 14. In the quarter, the overall business performance was significantly affected by our overseas school and overseas-related complementary business. Our other business in China have shown major improvement in year-over-year revenue growth. The revenue for the first fiscal quarter was RMB 1.051 billion, dropped by 4.2%. The company produced net income of RMB 190.9 million, down by 6.6%. Our domestic K12 business were off to a very promising start, and the momentum to our business clearly has picked up in the first fiscal quarter. As life in China continues to return to new normal. Demand for our K12 grew in the quarter. Enrollment of international school, bilingual school, and kindergarten up by 9.7%, 8%, and 17% respectively, as shown in slide 15. Average tuition fees of international school and bilingual school have also recorded an increase of 1.9% and 5%. In these challenging times, we could not be more pleased with the momentum across all of our domestic K12 businesses. Our near-term priority is to drive enrollment growth, optimize utilization, and improve operating efficiency. The strength of our brand reflects our unwavering commitment to deliver quality education consistently. As of January 15th, approximately 60.5% of students in the 2021 graduating class of our international school have received over 400 offers from global top 50 institutions, with six conditional offers from Oxford, two from the University of Chicago, two from Cornell, four from New York University, and one from Northwestern University, as shown in slide 16. We expect more students will receive offers from the elite institutions, and the academic performance of our students will continue to improve across all age groups. Our overseas business performance has been adversely impacted by devastating pandemic. In the U.K., where most of our overseas school is based, the government continues to institute lockdown measures to control the spread of the virus and address the emergence of a new virus variant. The whole educational system continues to be upended by the ongoing health crisis, and the schools face daily challenges in meeting the needs of our students, with none of the schools nor learning centers opened for in-person learning. Although we have been able to help schools to overcome these obstacles with online solutions to turn around the learning loss and the potential impact on student achievement. Our top line was significantly impacted by the absence of traditional school-based activities. In the quarter, our overseas revenue dropped by 48.2%. During the quarter, we remain intently focused on both supporting our schools, students, parents, and teaching staff as they adapt to COVID-19 disruptions and delays, as well as managing the negative effect of COVID-19, our student enrollment and financials. As we continue to lower costs and increase efficiency, taking steps to reduce operating costs and optimize our operation and improve our IT infrastructure. The benefits realized from the cost-cutting measures and the investment taking over the last two quarters should bring long-term improvements to the cost structure of our overseas business, as well as opportunities for significant gain in profitability once our operating environment resumes to normalcy. Again, our global network is of strategic importance in realizing long-term value with enormous market opportunities and synergies yet to be unlocked, as shown in slide 17. Let's move on to slide 18 for our complementary education services business. The recovery is evident, and the demand for our service remains strong in China. In the quarter, there was a solid uptake in domestic after-school training and the campus business, with revenue increased by 7.7% and 635% respectively. However, the ongoing pandemic in Europe and the rising U.S.-China tensions continue to have adverse impact on our overseas-related complementary business, including overseas study counseling, whose revenue dropped by 49.4%, which in return affected the overall business performance for the quarter, with total revenue decreased by 5.8%. In spite of the challenges for overseas-related business, there are growing opportunities with regulatory tailwinds beginning to build in area of online courses, after-school training, and study campus business. Amid the macro headwinds, I'm pleased to report that our edtech business has been doing quite well, with a revenue up 64% in the quarter, including the acquisition of Linstitute. Please turn to slide 19 for our edtech business. The COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on the importance of education technology for learning. Digital adoption in home and school education continued to accelerate at a fast pace. We are gaining more traction for 3iGlobal Academy and other edtech initiatives as we expand our blended traditional and digital learning solutions to meet the faster evolving needs of students, parents, and teachers. We face continuing uncertainty in our overseas operations in the coming quarter. The strategic steps we are taking are providing benefits today, and more importantly, they are positioning us for continued success in post-COVID-19 business environment. Before I turn the call to Dora, I would like to share with you the key strategic priorities as shown in slide 20. In the 2021 fiscal year, our strategy will continue to build upon our four strategic pillars. First, focus on maintaining organic growth in our domestic K-12 business, which provides the cash cow to fuel the new growth initiatives and acquisitions. Second, focus on cost management to lower our cost base and improve our long-term operating leverage and profit margin. Third, optimize integration planning to unlock new revenue and cost synergies and expand complementary education offerings. Finally, continue to invest in education technology and complementary education services, and deploy capital in strategic acquisitions for long-term growth. Due to the uncertainties associated with COVID-19 and the macroeconomic headwinds, our overseas management team has analyzed several scenarios that are contingent on the gaps and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting impact on our overseas business. We have taken the most conservative approach that forms the basis for our revised guidance, of which I will leave it to Dora for the details. With this note, I turn the call to Dora. Thank you, Jerry. Let's turn back to our financials. Please also be reminded that all numbers are in RMB and all comparisons refer to year-over-year comparisons unless otherwise stated. Please also refer to our earnings press release for detailed information of our comparative financial performance on a year-over-year basis. Please turn to slide 22. Revenue for the quarter. Overall, the revenue was down 4.2% to RMB 1,051.5 million. Revenue for our domestic K-12 schools, including international schools, bilingual schools, and kindergartens, was up 10.9% for the quarter to RMB 742.4 million, accounted for 70.6% of total revenue as compared to 60.9%. For international schools, revenue was up 11.1% to RMB 304.3 million, primarily due to the 9.7% increase of student enrollment and a 1.9% increase in average tuition fees. Our bilingual schools revenue was up 13.5% to RMB 260.8 million due to the 8% increase in student enrollment and 5% increase in average tuition fees. For our kindergarten, revenue was up 6.8% to RMB 177.3 million, primarily due to 17% increase in student enrollment. Revenue from our overseas K-12 schools was down 48.2% to RMB 134.2 million, primarily due to the impact of COVID-19. Revenue for our education technology segment was up 64% to RMB 36.7 million, primarily due to the acquisition of Linstitute. Revenue from complementary education was down 5.8% to RMB 138.2 million due to the impact of overseas related complementary business. On slide 23, cost of revenue for the quarter was 57.9% of total revenue, compared to 56.9% in the same quarter of last fiscal year. Teaching staff cost, the primary cost contributor, accounted for 32.6% of total revenue, up from 29.5% for same quarter last year. Our domestic K-12 schools average student-teacher ratio for this fiscal quarter was 9.2, compared to 8.9 in the same period last fiscal year. On slide 24, the gross profit and margin. Gross profit was down 6.5% to RMB 442.8 million for the quarter, and gross margin was 42.1% compared to 43.1%. Continuing on slide 25, adjusted SG&A expenses as percentage of total revenue was 21%, up from 18.2% in the same quarter last fiscal year. The increase in SG&A expenses was primarily due to the incremental SG&A expenses associated with newly established international school and kindergartens, and also the acquisition of new business on a comparable basis. To elaborate more on the adjusted SG&A expenses, please refer to our slide 26. Continue to slide 27. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $320.6 million, compared to $352.5 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 30.5% compared to 32.1%. Adjusted net income for the quarter was RMB 197.1 million compared to RMB 223 million, and adjusted net margin was 18.7% compared to 20.3%. On slide 28, shows our cash and bank balance. As of November 30, 2020, our cash and cash equivalent and restricted cash totaled RMB 1,697 million, or $258.1 million, as compared to RMB 4,424 million on August 31, 2020. We also have short-term investment of RMB 2,175 million as of November 30, 2020. Moving to slide 30. In November 2020, the board approved the third share repurchase program of the company of up to $50 million. As of January 15, 2021, the company has bought back 61,622 shares for $0.4 million. Continuing to slide 31. We are revising our guidance for the fiscal year ending August 31, 2021. We expect our total revenue in the range of RMB 3.59 billion and RMB 3.69 billion, representing a growth of 7%-10% based on existing business and without any potential acquisitions. We also expect average student enrollment in our domestic and overseas schools to be between approximately 56,000 and 57,000, representing increase of 8%-10%. We also expect to open 19 kindergartens for fiscal 2021, beyond fiscal 2021, we have seven schools and 39 kindergartens contracted for operation. Please refer to the table in slide 33 and 34 for the condensed income statement. Slide 35 shows the reconciliation for SGA expenses, EBITDA, and net income on a GAAP to non-GAAP results. Slide 36 shows our balance sheet and the cash flow statement. For the fiscal quarter ended November 30, 2020, the company's capital expenditure was approximately RMB 55.2 million, down 25.8% compared to the same period of last fiscal year. Also on slide 37, shows our average student enrollment and average tuition fees across our network. This concludes my financial updates. Now I will turn back to Jerry for his closing remarks. Jerry? Thank you, Dora. I'm very pleased with the way our company has adapted to the continuing challenges associated with COVID-19. With deep conviction and a strong resilience, we constantly looking for new ways of enriching the learning experience of our students at school and at home, finding new streams of revenue while enhancing our competitive cost base to protect our operating income and cash positions. We remain certain of our value proposition of providing premier education service to be supported by our global network of schools and powered by technologies. We remain certain of our addressable market, which is enormous market opportunities and potential is yet to be unlocked. We are most certain that Bright Scholar is well-positioned to weather the storm and to capitalize on the opportunities for the years to come. We remain confident in our ability to deliver our targets and a sustainable shareholder value through this unprecedented period of pandemic uncertainty. This concludes our prepared remarks, and then we would like to open the call to the questions. Operator, please. Thank you we will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question you may press star and one on you touch tone phone. If you are using a speaker phone please pick up your headset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your questions please press star then two. The first question is from Timothy Zhao from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Hi, management. Thank you for taking my question. Just a quick one on your revenue guidance. I see that you cut the revenue guidance by around 5%. Can you expand in more detail about the rationale behind that? On your overseas school, because I see in the first quarter, it seems that the domestic business is growing quite well, but overseas revenue dropped a lot. What kind of recovery path are you expecting for the overseas business? Thank you. Hi, Tim. This is Jerry. I'll take your question. We lowered the guidance mainly because what's going on with the second wave of pandemic. When we did the guidance last time, we were expecting some of the student would delay registration from fall semester to the spring semester, meaning they're going to come back in January. That was, of course, before the fall semester started. Of course, as we all know, that if you look at the new cases in the U.K., back in April of last year, I think the daily new cases was around 4,000 or 5,000. At its peak, it actually went to 60,000, which is more than 10 times what it was prior peak. The entire country is in the lockdown. As we found out, the deferred students who were supposed to come back in January, now they couldn't come because of all the travel restrictions. You probably heard in the news, many countries cut their travel connections with the U.K. Enrollment would not come. We stat, of course, who are registered already would be converted online. Everybody's online other than those one campus in Cambridge, where some students who are already there, they didn't go home for Christmas, we kept them in the dorm, even though they're taking classes online. We're going to lose some revenue from the boarding as well, because if the student not come, we're going to lose that as well. Now we're basically factoring all that in, the second wave, and also the new variant, if you will, the virus, presumably more contagious one. We basically say whoever not on our campus now or not registered now, we just assume they couldn't come for the rest of the fiscal year. We basically write that down. That contributed to the drop. It's three sources, basically the tuition, the boarding, and we also have a business in language training that's Stafford House under CATS. Of course, with lockdown, there are very limited teaching you can do over there as well. Because of those three loss in revenue, we lowered our guidance for that. For the domestic, as you mentioned, mostly back to normal. As you can see, the enrollment went up, and for one thing, we couldn't do much this year because of the pandemic and the increase of the tuition. Even though we got more student, we were not able to increase tuition as much as we have done in the previous years. Even with that, we still see a growth, as you can see the numbers in domestic adult. Sure. Thank you. Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. There are no more questions in the queue. This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Jerry He for any closing remarks. Thank you very much for joining the conference call. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions. We wish everybody a good day and a great year. Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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