Good morning, and thank you for standing by for Bright Scholar's FY 2021 Fourth Fiscal Quarter Earnings and Fiscal Year 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Ms. Ruby Yim, Investor Relations Counsel. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator. Good morning and good evening. Welcome to Bright Scholar's Fourth Fiscal Quarter Ended August 31st, 2021 Earnings Call. Joining me today are Mr. Jerry He, our Executive Vice Chairman, Mr. Andy Chen and Ms. Wanmei Li, our Co-Chief Executive Officers, and Ms. Dora Li, our Chief Financial Officer. Now, before we start the call, first and foremost, let us apologize for the slight inconvenience we are causing due to the slight technical issue which we are currently trying to resolve. You might not be able to download both the press release and the presentation at this moment, but it will be very soon. Thank you. Now let's start. 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 December 21st, 2021, after market closes, Eastern Time. If you have not, it is available on our website after the call or as soon as the technical issue to resolve. 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, development which can be identified by terminology such as may, will, expect, anticipate, aim, estimate, intend, plan, believe, potential, continue, if or likely to, or other similar expressions. Such statements are based upon management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions, and relates to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors 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. Further information regarding this and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in the company's filings 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 in our management remarks are in RMB, and all comparisons refer to year-over-year comparisons unless otherwise stated. For all 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 nine. Okay, with that, I'll turn the call over to our Executive Vice Chairman, Jerry He. Jerry. Thanks, Ruby. Good morning and good evening. Thank you for joining us on our Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2021 Conference Call. We appreciate your continued interest in following Bright Scholar. On today's call, on behalf of the senior management team, the prepared remarks will cover our quarterly and full fiscal year performance, business progress and updates. Dora will then provide details on our respective business and the financial performance. I will wrap up with a brief conclusion before open the call for questions. Now, let's begin. As you may have seen from our earnings release, we capped off a challenging fiscal year 2021 with a solid fiscal fourth quarter, which is particularly notable in the face of the significant financial impact for the discontinued operations of affected entities in our domestic K-12 business, as well as the continued uncertainty and challenges in the regulatory and the business operating environments. Please turn to slide 11 for highlights of our fourth fiscal quarter and the full fiscal year performance. For continuing operations in the quarter, we recorded a 23.3% growth in the revenue and a 105.6% in gross profit as compared to the same period of fiscal year. Full fiscal year basis, our revenue was RMB 1.4 billion, down by 5.1% as compared to fiscal year 2020. This performance is a direct testament to the strength of our multi-facet growth strategy and the agility of our diversified business. Moving on to the performance of our respective business. On domestic K-12 business, our continuing operation covers domestic and for-profit kindergartens and the K-12 operation services. For our operation services for K-12 schools, we plan to expand into management services and to offer a range of high-quality professional support solutions, enabling schools to achieve and operate with excellence and efficiency. Our team of experts assist the school leaders and the business managers with specialist advice, reassurance, and hands-on operating support. China's COVID-19 containment strategy provides a stable operating environment for continuous recovery. Providing high-quality education service is the key component of our vision. Our performance demonstrates our unwavering commitment in delivering quality education, as shown in slide 12. As of August 31st, 2021, approximately 93.5% of our 2021 graduate class were admitted to global top 50 institutions, and 97.7% were admitted to global top 100 institutions. For our 2022 graduating class, we made a historical breakthrough and obtained one offer from Princeton University as of the date of this earnings release. We have also been leveraging our collaboration with the CATS Global Schools to enrich our offering and at the same time to expand into management service, offering service such as school operation, property management and maintenance, administrative management, student recruitment, and the school branding. We believe the expansion into management services will provide significant and long-lasting organizational benefits for future partnering schools and creating additional value for advancing equity education in China. Our domestic K-12 operation business is well-positioned with an evolving regulatory environment in China designed to address quality, equity, and all-around development in China's education system. Continue on to slide 13 for Complementary Education Services. Bright Scholar is in full alignment with the blueprint of the government policy that focuses on all-around development for students. Our strategic roadmap is based on our conviction that both schools and non-school contexts are critical to students' learning and achievement. Over the years, we have been expanding our complementary learning programs, including Study Tours and camps, and strengthened our offering by incorporating the overseas study counseling, international context training and career counseling. We continue to see tremendous market opportunities coming our way as demand for non-school supplementary services has been growing at a phenomenal pace. In the fiscal fourth quarter, revenue for Complementary Education Services grew by 16.5% year-over-year to RMB 182.6 million. The pace of growth has been affected by the ongoing travel restrictions from regional outbreaks of the pandemic in China and across the globe. However, in light of the speedy response from the government in offering booster shots, we are optimistic that the pandemic will soon be contained again. In the meantime, we continue to execute on our strategy to expand our brand awareness, broaden our service offerings, diversify revenue sources, and be ready to seize the market opportunities when operating environments return to normal. Turning to slide 14 for our overseas school business. Recovery in the overseas markets continues to be slow but steady, despite the travel restrictions that have been on and off amid the fast emergence of new variants. However, our strategic initiative to streamline the business, rebuild revenue growth, and optimize cost synergy yielded early results. In the quarter, revenue re-recorded an encouraging year-over-year increase of 9.2%. Overseas business, which recently grouped and branded under CATS Global Schools, CGS, is of strategic importance to us and is one of the key building blocks to advance our ambition as a global premier education service company. Our long-term vision is to build a business that scales with market-leading global family of schools recognized for education excellence. I'm very pleased to report that we have completed the corporate branding campaign with great success and has progressed to the next phase that focus on integration as well establishment of high-performing operating models for our group of schools. We expect these initiatives will form the foundation upon which we are to build our business for post-pandemic future and to be future-ready company. To conclude, we are very pleased about the operational improvement that we have demonstrated in fiscal year 2021 and the progress made on enhancing capabilities that provide a path towards our long-term goals. Heading to fiscal year 2022, we are optimistic that our business will have a strong long-term recovery. Our business fundamentals are strong, and we remain well-positioned to navigate the current operating environment. The overarching strategy of Bright Scholar, as in slide 15, is to continue to expand our business portfolios, strengthen operations, operational performance across our global businesses, optimize synergies across the network, broaden our service offerings in complementary education services, expand into management services for domestic K-12 schools, and diversify our revenue stream to bring the most value to our students, partners, and stakeholders. With this note, I will take the call over to Dora. Thank you, Jerry. Let's turn back to our financials. Please 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 17. We ended the fourth fiscal quarter and the fiscal year with steady recovery across all our business segments, despite of the resurgence of pandemic, mainly attributed by the strength of our diversified portfolio of business. For continuing operations, our top line was up 23.3% to RMB 320 million for the quarter, and down 5.1% to RMB 1,401.8 million on a yearly basis. Revenue from overseas schools was up 9.2% for the quarter and down 39.9% on a yearly basis. Revenue from complementary education was up 16.5% for the quarter and up 15.8% on a yearly basis. Revenue from domestic kindergarten and the K-12 operation services was up 84.2% for the quarter and up 173.4% on a yearly basis. On slide 18, cost of revenue from continuing operations. Our focus remains on effectively managing the evolving regulatory and the dynamic business environment through maintaining cost discipline to enhance profitability. For the quarter, the total cost of revenue was RMB 271.7 million, an increase of 15.1% and accounted for 84.9% of total revenue, compared to 90.9%. On a yearly basis, total cost of revenue increased by 11.4% to RMB 1,180.3 million, and accounted for 84.2% of total revenue, compared to 71.8%. That cost, the primary cost contributor accounted for 20.8% of total revenue in the quarter, down from 31.2%. On a yearly basis, staff cost was 24.6% of total revenue, up from 22.1%. On slide 19, our gross profit and the margins from continuing operations. Gross margin profile from continuing operations remains strong in fourth quarter, despite significant impact from discontinued operation of domestic K-12 business. For the quarter, gross profit was up 105.6%, and gross margin was up 6%- 15.1%. On a yearly basis, gross profit was down 46.9%, and gross margin was down 12.4%-15.8%. Continuing to adjust SG&A expenses. Adjust SG&A expenses from continuing operation, on slide 20, we optimize operational efficiency across our business, continuing to enhance a competitive cost base. Adjusted SG&A expenses from continuing operation was RMB 158.7 million, down 0.4% for the quarter, and accounted for 49.6% of total revenue, compared to 61.4% in the same quarter last fiscal year. On a yearly basis, adjusted SG&A expenses was RMB 534 million, down 6.8% and accounted for 38.1% of total revenue, compared to 38.8% last fiscal year. As shown in slide 21, the impact from discontinued operation is significant. For the quarter, adjusted EBITDA loss was RMB 29.8 million, up 50.1% from loss of RMB 59.7 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin was negative 9.3% compared to negative 23%. On a yearly basis, adjusted EBITDA loss was RMB 30.3 million, down 176.2% from adjusted EBITDA of RMB 39.7 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin was -2.2% compared to 2.7%. As disclosed in our earnings release, net loss for the quarter was RMB 478.2 million and consists of RMB 279.3 million loss from continuing operations and RMB 198.9 million loss from discontinued operations. In addition, one-off losses amounting to RMB 261.3 million were recognized and included in the loss from discontinued operations. Except for one-off losses, discontinued operations generated RMB 62.4 million profit for the quarter. Adjusted net loss for the quarter was RMB 175.5 million, as compared to adjusted net loss of RMB 131.4 million for the same period of last fiscal year. Net loss for fiscal year was RMB 165.8 million and consists of RMB 535.1 million loss from continuing operation and RMB 369.3 million profit from discontinued operation. In addition, one-off losses amounting to RMB 261.3 million were recorded and included in income from discontinued operation for the whole fiscal year. Except the one-off losses, the discontinued operation generated RMB 630.6 million profit for the fiscal year. Adjusted net loss for the fiscal year was RMB 420.2 million, as compared to adjusted net loss of RMB 283.6 million for last fiscal year. Amidst the substantial loss from discontinued operation, our top priority remains focused on driving adjusted EBITDA growth. We have a solid balance sheet that enabled us to navigate through the challenging period, as shown in slide 22. As of August 31st, 2021, our cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash totaled RMB 1,515.2 million or $234.5 million, as compared to RMB 2,011.9 million as of August 31st, 2020. The company also had amounts due from affected entities of RMB 2,028.9 million as of August 31st, 2021, and most of which was settled as of this earnings release date. Moving on to slide 24. Our third share repurchase program ended in November 2021. The company has bought back 0.7 million shares for $3.9 million. We will continue to maintain our excess capital at the level which can allow us the financial flexibility to grow our organic business and pursue acquisitions opportunities in the future. Please refer to the table in slide 26 for the condensed income statement. Slide 27 shows the reconciliation for SG&A expenses, EBITDA, and net income on a GAAP and non-GAAP results. Slide 28 shows our balance sheet and cash flow statement. For the fiscal year ended August 31st, 2021, the company's capital expenditure was approximately RMB 158.7 million, up 6% compared to last fiscal year. Finally, on guidance for fiscal year 2022. For reasons stated in our earnings release, the company has decided not to provide financial guidance for fiscal year 2022 until the company has a better and more definitive understanding of the outcomes of impact the business disposal plan will have on the company's financial performance. This concludes my financial update. Now I will turn the call to Jerry He for his closing remarks. Jerry? Thanks, Dora. In closing, our financial results reflect the exceptional execution by the entire BEDU team as we continue to navigate the evolving regulatory environment in dynamic education industry. We feel good about the underlying momentum and the trajectory of our diversified and complementary portfolio of businesses as we start the fiscal year 2022. We're continuing to enhance efficiency of our operations, accelerate our growth strategy, and advance our commitment to providing premier education services for our students and partners. I'm very optimistic about the future and excited about the opportunities ahead to drive further business and earnings expansion for shareholder value creation over the long term. This concludes our prepared remarks, and we would like to open the call for questions. Operator, please. Thank you. The IR website is now back online. The earnings PPT and earnings release are now available to download. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. If you find your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Again, it is star one if you would like to ask a question. We'll go ahead and take our first question from Anna Zhang from KeyBanc. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks, management. Hi, Dora. I have a follow-up on the comments you just gave on the amount due from affected entities. Because I noticed that the short term investment after restatement is zero. So I'm just wondering 'cause previously my understanding is that the restricted cash was pledged offshore and you get a loan from onshore with the proceeds put in the short-term investment. So I'm just wondering, is it actually on the affected entities and there's amount due from affected entities to the WFOE entity, so it's shown as due from affected entities? Hi, this is Dora. Yes, the amount due from affected entities was part of the, you know, we continue to do some short-term investment after August 31st. Because of the continuity of the investment, the investment was invested through the sponsored company. The sponsored company, based on the requirement from the, you know, relative law and accounting requirement, the sponsor company was also put into the discontinued operation. As of August 31st, by then, the investment are still under the sponsored company. On August 31st, it shows amount due from the discontinued operation to the listing company. Right now it has been, you know, all settled. Okay. By settled it would mean it's now cash with the listed company? Yes. Okay. Got it. Thank you. As a reminder, it is star one if you would like to ask a question. Star one to ask a question. We'll pause just for another moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. As one more reminder, it is star one if you would like to ask a question. It appears we have no further questions at this time. Okay. Shall we conclude the call? Okay, 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 great day. Thank you. With that does conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Thank you.
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