Nach einer Nachzahlung von 524 Millionen Yuan und dem Streben nach einer IPO an der Hongkonger Börse, kann Aier Eye Hospital die Deadlock-Situation überwinden?
An announcement regarding the supplementary payment of taxes has once again brought the long - dormant "Eye Darling" Aier Eye Hospital into the spotlight of the market.
On May 20th, Aier Eye Hospital issued an announcement stating that the company had conducted a self - review of its tax affairs in accordance with relevant state tax regulations. After the review, the company had to pay an additional 348 million yuan in taxes and 176 million yuan in late - payment interest, totaling 524 million yuan. As of the date of the announcement, the above - mentioned taxes and late - payment interest had been fully settled.
According to relevant accounting standards, the current supplementary payment of taxes and late - payment interest will be included in the company's current earnings in 2026, which casts a significant shadow on the company's annual performance.
From past annual report data, it can be seen that Aier Eye Hospital has shown signs of a weak growth rate for a long time. In 2025, the company achieved a turnover of 22.35 billion yuan, representing an annual growth of 6.53%; the net profit was 3.24 billion yuan, a decrease of 8.88% compared to the previous year, which clearly shows a pattern of revenue growth without profit growth. This was also the first time since Aier Eye Hospital went public that the annual net profit declined compared to the previous year. In 2026, the company's business briefly returned to the positive zone. In the first quarter, it achieved a turnover of 6.396 billion yuan and a net profit of 1.181 billion yuan, representing an increase of 6.15% and 12.46% respectively compared to the previous year. With the current large - scale supplementary payment of taxes, the sustainability of the company's turnover growth in the first quarter is full of uncertainties.
Under the influence of negative news, the market voted with its feet. On the day the announcement was released, Aier Eye Hospital's stock price fell by 4.15%.
As of the last closing price, Aier Eye Hospital's total market capitalization was 87.2 billion yuan. Recalling the historical high, the company's stock price once reached 42.25 yuan per share in 2021, and the total market capitalization reached a maximum of 389.7 billion yuan. To date, the company's stock price has dropped by nearly 80% from the high, and the market capitalization has shrunk by more than 300 billion yuan in total.
The market generally believes that Aier Eye Hospital settled the tax payments at this time, possibly to pave the way for its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
On April 23rd this year, Chen Bang, the chairman of Aier Eye Hospital, presided over a board meeting, in which the company officially announced that as part of its international strategy and to create an international capital platform, it intended to issue H - shares and be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. From the timeline, it can be seen that the company completed the full tax payment less than a month after the announcement of its listing in Hong Kong, which underscores its determination to conduct an H - share IPO.
The industrial M&A fund model has created the growth legend of the "Eye Darling"
Aier Eye Hospital's development dates back to 2002 when its founder, Chen Bang, opened the first specialized eye hospital in Changsha.
At that time, the Chinese ophthalmic service industry was fragmented, and business models were scattered. The ophthalmology departments of public hospitals absolutely dominated the market, while private eye clinics were generally small in size, had a weak brand presence, and lacked a competitive edge.
However, Chen Bang accurately recognized the industry's development opportunities: With the accelerating aging process of the Chinese population and the continuous increase in people's awareness of eye health, the demand for eye treatments will continue to rise. Thanks to a flexible service system, an efficient operating mechanism, and rapid expansion capabilities, the private chain - operation model has development advantages that public hospitals cannot match.
In 2009, Aier Eye Hospital was successfully listed on the ChiNext Board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, becoming the first Chinese medical company to be listed. The stock issuance price was 28 yuan per share, and the total market capitalization was about 6 billion yuan at that time.
At the beginning of its listing, the company's expansion pace was generally moderate, and its growth was limited. However, the industrial M&A fund model introduced in 2014 fundamentally changed Aier Eye Hospital's growth story and brought the company into a phase of rapid expansion.
Before 2014, Aier Eye Hospital's expansion model was rather traditional, mainly based on directly establishing or acquiring eye clinics with the listed company's own funds. However, the medical industry has special operating characteristics: It usually takes 2 to 3 years or even longer for a newly - established eye hospital to become profitable, and there are continuous losses during the development phase. If all newly - established and acquired clinics were directly integrated into the listed company, the continuously loss - making entities would directly affect the company's current performance, thus influencing the stock price and the company's capital - raising ability in the capital market.
The "Listed Company + Private Equity" industrial M&A fund model has perfectly solved this problem in the industry. In this model, Aier Eye Hospital only invests a small part of the capital and jointly establishes an industrial M&A fund with external social capital. The fund is responsible for establishing and acquiring eye clinics in different regions and conducts the development and incubation of the entities outside the listed company. When the clinics have overcome the loss - making phase and achieved stable profits, Aier Eye Hospital takes over the mature and high - quality entities in parts into the listed company system, either through cash payments or stock payments.
This innovative model has two core advantages. Firstly, it can mobilize capital with high leverage and enhance expansion capabilities. Official data shows that Aier Eye Hospital has participated in the establishment of more than a dozen industrial M&A funds successively, with its own cumulative investment of about 2.087 billion yuan, leveraging more than 21.9 billion yuan in external funds. This is equivalent to leveraging nearly 10 times the expansion funds with 1 time of its own funds, greatly improving the company's store - opening efficiency. Secondly, it can isolate losses during the development phase and optimize the listed company's balance sheet. By keeping the new clinics in the loss - making development phase in an external fund, the negative impact of the new clinics' losses on the listed company's current performance is effectively avoided, and the listed company's financial statements remain stable in the long term.
With the support of the industrial M&A fund, Aier Eye Hospital began an exponential expansion. At the time of its listing in 2009, the company had only 19 clinics. Before the introduction of the fund model in 2014, the number of domestic clinics had only increased to about 50. After the introduction of the model, the company's scale expanded rapidly. By the end of 2023, the number of Aier Eye Hospital's domestic clinics was 256, and there were 183 outpatient departments. In addition, the external industrial M&A fund still has 311 medical institutions in its portfolio, which is a considerable reserve.
The explosive growth in the number of branches has directly led to a simultaneous upswing in the company's performance and market capitalization. In terms of the company's performance, the turnover in 2023 increased to 20.37 billion yuan, and the net profit reached 3.359 billion yuan, which is an 8 - fold and 10 - fold increase respectively compared to the turnover of 2.402 billion yuan and the net profit of 309 million yuan in 2014. In the capital market, the stock price reached a high of 42.25 yuan per share in 2021, and the total market capitalization reached a peak of 389.7 billion yuan, only one step away from the 400 - billion - yuan mark.
Just when the market hoped for Aier Eye Hospital's continuous expansion and stable growth, the hidden risks of the company's rapid growth gradually emerged, and a turning point in the industry and operation has quietly arrived.
The jump to the H - share IPO cannot hide the difficulties of internal growth
Every business model has its advantages and disadvantages, and the industrial M&A fund model also has inherent weaknesses. The long - term and rapid M&A expansion has created the risk of high goodwill values for Aier Eye Hospital.
Each time a mature external entity is incorporated into the listed company, the acquisition is made at a high premium price. According to the company's accounting standards, the part of the acquisition amount that exceeds the fair value of the entity's net assets is recorded as goodwill in the company. Data shows that Aier Eye Hospital's goodwill was only 249 million yuan before the introduction of the fund model in 2014; it slightly increased to 448 million yuan in 2016; after the acceleration of the M&A pace in 2017, the goodwill jumped to 2.122 billion yuan. Since then, the total goodwill has continued to increase. By the end of the first quarter of 2026, Aier Eye Hospital's goodwill balance was already 11.97 billion yuan.
Goodwill itself is not a risk, but the core risk lies in the pressure of goodwill impairment. If the actual profitability of the acquired clinics fails to meet the acquisition expectations, the company must make goodwill impairment provisions according to accounting standards. Among the hundreds of clinics that Aier Eye Hospital has acquired over the years, many are located in the suburbs of prefecture - level cities and counties. The medical competition in these regions is complex, and the purchasing power of the population is limited. Therefore, the stability and growth of profits are highly uncertain. The risk of impairment has already materialized: From 2017 to 2023, the company made a total of 1.377 billion yuan in goodwill impairment provisions; in 2025, it recorded another 156 million yuan in goodwill impairment losses, continuously eroding the company's profits.
Aside from the pressure of high goodwill values, the M&A expansion model that Aier Eye Hospital relies on has gradually lost its effectiveness. After ten years of extensive market - capturing process, the resources of high - quality eye clinics that can be acquired in China are severely depleted.
Currently, the ophthalmic market penetration in China's first - and second - tier cities is almost saturated, and the company's new expansion targets mainly focus on underdeveloped suburbs. Due to the regional consumption ability and limited number of visitors, the profit - making phase of new clinics in the suburbs is further extended, and the profit margin is continuously restricted. Regarding this situation, Chen Bang, the chairman of Aier Eye Hospital, publicly admitted at the 2024 annual general meeting that the traditional expansion model of the M&A fund has basically fulfilled its historical mission, and the company will focus on improving the efficiency of existing facilities in the future. This is also an official announcement that the phase of rapid growth of Aier Eye Hospital driven by M&A expansion has finally come to an end.
More importantly, after the old growth model ended, the company has not yet developed a second growth curve to take its place, and the pressure of internal growth is becoming increasingly obvious.
The growth rate data directly confirms the weakness of growth: In 2023, the company's turnover and net profit growth rates were 26.43% and 33.07% respectively; in 2024, the growth rates of both values dropped sharply to 3.02% and 5.87% respectively; in 2025, the turnover increased slightly by 6.53%, but the net profit decreased by 8.88% compared to the previous year. This was the first time since the listing that the annual net profit was negative, and the operating pressure was obvious.
After the beauty filter of the industrial M&A fund's balance sheet was removed, the weaknesses of the company's core business were fully exposed. In recent years, many competitors have entered the two core business fields of refractive treatment and optometry. The industry competition has intensified, the market share has significantly decreased, and the profit margin of the company's core businesses has been continuously under pressure. The annual report data shows that refractive treatment and optometry services are the company's first and second - largest sources of turnover, with a turnover share of 37.5% and 25.89% respectively. However, the profitability of the two core businesses has continuously declined. The profit margin of the refractive project has decreased from 57.4% in 2023 to 55.01% in 2025, and the profit margin of the optometry service project has decreased from 57.05% to 51.92%. The profit margin of the core business is continuously restricted.
Since the growth of the core business is blocked and the old expansion model no longer works, Aier Eye Hospital pins its hopes on listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
On the evening of April 23rd this year, Aier Eye Hospital issued an announcement in which the board members approved the applications for the issuance of H - shares and listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, thus officially kicking off the planning for the "A + H" dual - listing. The company stated that the listing in Hong Kong aims to enhance the global... (The text seems to be incomplete here)