TOP TOY Targets IPO with Over HKD 10 Billion Valuation; Ye Guofu Aims for Third Listed Entity

Deep News04-01 18:22

Trendy toy brand TOP TOY International Group Limited has submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, marking its second attempt following the lapse of its initial application on September 26, 2025.

A successful listing for TOP TOY would make it the third publicly traded company under the control of Ye Guofu, following MINISO Group Holding Limited and Yonghui Superstores.

Established in December 2020, TOP TOY is a core brand incubated by MINISO to enter the trendy toy market. From its inception, the company has leveraged its parent company's advantages in supply chain, distribution channels, and capital to expand rapidly. By the end of 2025, TOP TOY operated 334 stores.

According to the prospectus, the company completed its first and only round of financing in July 2025, raising $59.4 million (approximately HKD 462 million). The investor lineup was notable, including Temasek, Acorn Capital, and Chuangxiang Investment, resulting in a post-money valuation of $1.3 billion (approximately HKD 10.2 billion).

Regarding the shareholding structure, MINISO Group holds an 86.9% stake, making it the controlling shareholder. CEO Sun Yuanwen holds 3.9%, CFO Yan Xiaojiao holds 0.8%, and the management shareholding platform, TOP TOY MANAGEMENT, holds 3.7%. Temasek, through its affiliated entities, holds a combined 4.0%, making it the largest external institutional shareholder. Acorn Capital holds 0.6%, and Xie Guohua, founder of Lingdong Chuangxiang, holds 0.2%.

Financial data shows that TOP TOY's revenue has experienced explosive growth in recent years, but its profitability has been highly volatile, presenting a trend of increasing revenue without a corresponding increase in profit. From 2023 to 2025, the company's revenue was RMB 1.461 billion, RMB 1.909 billion, and RMB 3.587 billion, respectively. The revenue in 2025 saw a significant year-on-year increase of 87.9%, with a three-year compound annual growth rate exceeding 50%.

In contrast, net profit figures were markedly different. Net profits for the same periods were RMB 210 million, RMB 290 million, and RMB 100 million, respectively. The 2025 net profit decreased sharply by 65.6% year-on-year, and the net profit margin plummeted from 15.4% in 2024 to just 2.8% in 2025.

TOP TOY attributed this steep decline in net profit in its prospectus primarily to substantial non-cash expenses of approximately RMB 390 million, including fair value losses on preferred shares and share-based compensation, compounded by costs associated with rapid store expansion, marketing, and listing-related expenses.

It is noteworthy that TOP TOY faces significant customer concentration risk. For the years ended December 31, 2023, 2024, and 2025, revenue from the top five customers accounted for 76.5%, 66.2%, and 59.5% of the company's total revenue, respectively.

Revenue from the largest customer, MINISO Group, accounted for 53.5%, 48.3%, and 45.5% in the respective periods. Although the customer concentration has shown a year-on-year decreasing trend, it remains at a high level.

From a market share perspective, based on 2025 retail sales, TOP TOY ranked as the second-largest trendy toy retailer in China with a 4.8% market share. However, compared to the industry leader, Pop Mart, there exists a significant gap in terms of scale, growth rate, and profitability.

Pop Mart's revenue reached RMB 37.12 billion in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 184.7%, making its revenue scale more than ten times that of TOP TOY, with a growth rate far exceeding the latter. More crucially, the fundamental differences in their business models determine their differing profit levels.

Pop Mart is a typical "IP brand company," with its core competitiveness lying in independently incubating and operating hit proprietary IPs like Molly, Dimoo, and Labubu. In 2025, revenue from its own IPs accounted for over 99% of its total, allowing it to avoid high licensing fees due to exclusive IP ownership and leading to continuously rising gross profit margins of 61.3%, 66.8%, and 72.1% from 2023 to 2025.

In contrast, TOP TOY operates more like a "trendy toy supermarket," following an "IP collection store" model. Its revenue is highly dependent on externally licensed IPs such as Marvel, Sanrio, and Naruto. In 2025, the revenue contribution from its own IPs, licensed IPs, and other brands' IPs was 5.7%, 51%, and 43.3%, respectively. The requirement to pay substantial licensing fees to copyright owners directly compresses its gross profit margin. Its gross profit margins for the same period were only 31.4%, 32.7%, and 32.1%, less than half of Pop Mart's.

Regarding its reliance on external IPs, Ye Guofu has previously stated an intention to adopt a dual-strategy of "international IPs + proprietary IPs" to achieve parallel development driven by both.

According to the prospectus, as of March 2026, the company possessed 24 proprietary IPs and 42 licensed IPs, and also leveraged over 660 IPs from other brands.

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