Paying back 524 million yuan in taxes and aiming for a Hong Kong IPO, can Aier Eye Hospital break the deadlock?
A tax supplement notice has brought the long - silent "Eye King" Aier Eye Hospital back into the market's view.
On May 20th, Aier Eye Hospital issued a notice stating that in accordance with the relevant requirements of national tax laws and regulations, the company took the initiative to conduct a self - inspection of tax - related matters. After verification, the company needs to supplement 348 million yuan in taxes and pay 176 million yuan in late fees, with a total amount of 524 million yuan. As of the date of the notice disclosure, the above - mentioned taxes and late fees have been fully paid.
According to relevant accounting standards, the current tax supplement and late - fee expenses will be included in the company's current profits and losses in 2026, casting a heavy shadow over the company's performance this year.
Judging from past financial report data, Aier Eye Hospital has already shown signs of weak growth. In 2025, the company achieved an operating revenue of 22.35 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 6.53%; the net profit was 3.24 billion yuan, a year - on - year decline of 8.88%, showing an obvious pattern of increasing revenue but not profit. This is also the first time since Aier Eye Hospital went public that the annual net profit has declined year - on - year. In 2026, the company's performance briefly recovered. In the first quarter, it achieved an operating revenue of 6.396 billion yuan and a net profit of 1.181 billion yuan, with year - on - year increases of 6.15% and 12.46% respectively. However, the implementation of this large - scale tax supplement has made the sustainability of the company's first - quarter performance growth full of uncertainty.
Under the impact of negative news, the market voted with its feet. On the day the notice was disclosed, Aier Eye Hospital's stock price tumbled 4.15%.
As of the latest closing, Aier Eye Hospital's total market value is 87.2 billion yuan. Looking back at the historical high, in 2021, the company's stock price once climbed to 42.25 yuan per share, and the total market value reached a maximum of 389.7 billion yuan. To date, the company's stock price has retreated nearly 80% from the high point, and the market value has shrunk by more than 300 billion yuan in total.
The market generally believes that Aier Eye Hospital's choice to pay off taxes at this time may be to pave the way for its listing on the Hong Kong stock market.
On April 23rd this year, Chen Bang, the chairman of Aier Eye Hospital, presided over a board meeting and officially announced externally that in order to promote the internationalization strategy and build an international capital platform, the company plans to issue H - shares and list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. From the timeline, less than a month after the official announcement of the plan to list in Hong Kong, the company completed the full payment of taxes, which fully reflects its firm determination to promote the Hong Kong IPO.
Industry M&A Funds: Creating the Growth Myth of the "Eye King"
Aier Eye Hospital's development can be traced back to 2002 when its founder, Chen Bang, opened the first ophthalmic specialty hospital in Changsha.
At that time, the domestic ophthalmic medical service industry had a fragmented pattern and scattered business forms. The ophthalmology departments of public hospitals dominated the market, while private ophthalmic institutions generally had small scales, weak brand influence, and insufficient market competitiveness.
However, Chen Bang accurately captured the industry's development dividends: as the aging process of the domestic population accelerates and residents' awareness of eye - health consumption continues to increase, the rigid demand for ophthalmic diagnosis and treatment will continue to expand. The private chain model has development advantages that public hospitals cannot match, thanks to its flexible service system, efficient operating mechanism, and rapid expansion ability.
In 2009, Aier Eye Hospital successfully listed on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, becoming the first domestic medical institution to go public. The initial public offering price was 28 yuan per share, and the total market value at that time was about 6 billion yuan.
In the early days of listing, the company's overall expansion pace was slow, and its development speed was limited. However, the operation mode of the industry M&A fund implemented in 2014 completely changed Aier Eye Hospital's growth trajectory and helped the enterprise enter a period of rapid expansion.
Before 2014, Aier Eye Hospital's expansion mode was relatively traditional, mainly relying on the listed company's own funds to directly build or acquire ophthalmic hospitals. However, the medical industry has special operating characteristics: it generally takes 2 to 3 years or even longer for a newly built ophthalmic hospital to start making a profit after opening, and there will be continuous losses during the cultivation period. If all newly built and acquired hospitals are directly included in the listed company, the continuously loss - making targets will directly drag down the company's current performance, thereby affecting the stock price trend and the company's refinancing ability in the capital market.
The "listed company + PE" industry M&A fund model perfectly solves this industry pain point. Under this model, Aier Eye Hospital only contributes a small amount of funds and jointly establishes an industry M&A fund with external social capital. The fund is responsible for building and acquiring ophthalmic medical institutions across the country, and completes the cultivation and incubation of the targets outside the listed company. After the hospital has passed the loss - making climbing period and reached the stable profit - making standard, Aier Eye Hospital will inject the mature and high - quality targets into the listed company system in batches through cash acquisition or share payment.
This innovative model has two core advantages. First, it uses high leverage to mobilize funds and amplify the expansion ability. Public data shows that Aier Eye Hospital has participated in the establishment of more than a dozen industry M&A funds, with a cumulative investment of about 2.087 billion yuan, leveraging more than 21.9 billion yuan in external funds. This is equivalent to 1 times of its own funds leveraging nearly 10 times of expansion funds, greatly improving the company's store - opening efficiency. Second, it isolates losses during the cultivation period and optimizes the listed company's financial statements. Placing new hospitals in the loss - making cultivation stage in the off - balance - sheet fund effectively avoids the impact of new - hospital losses on the listed company's current performance and maintains the stability of the listed company's financial statements in the long term.
Empowered by the industry M&A fund, Aier Eye Hospital has started exponential expansion. At the beginning of its listing in 2009, the company only had 19 hospitals. Before the implementation of the industry fund model in 2014, the number of domestic hospitals only increased to about 50. After the implementation of the model, the company's scale expanded rapidly. As of the end of 2023, Aier Eye Hospital had 256 domestic hospitals and 183 outpatient departments, and there were also 311 medical institutions under its off - balance - sheet industry M&A funds, with a large reserve scale.
The explosive growth in the number of stores has directly driven the company's performance and market value to soar simultaneously. In terms of performance, in 2023, the company's operating revenue increased to 20.37 billion yuan, and the net profit reached 3.359 billion yuan, an 8 - fold and 10 - fold increase respectively compared with the 2.402 billion yuan in operating revenue and 309 million yuan in net profit in 2014. In the capital market, in 2021, the company's stock price soared to 42.25 yuan per share, and the peak total market value reached 389.7 billion yuan, only one step away from the 400 - billion - yuan market - value mark.
Just when the market was optimistic about Aier Eye Hospital's continuous expansion and steady growth, the hidden risks of the enterprise's rapid development gradually emerged, and the inflection point of the industry and operation quietly arrived.
Striving for a Hong Kong IPO: Hard to Hide the Dilemma of Endogenous Growth
Any business model has its advantages and disadvantages, and the industry M&A fund model also has inherent shortcomings. Long - term high - speed M&A expansion has buried high - value goodwill risks for Aier Eye Hospital.
Each time a mature off - balance - sheet target is incorporated into the listed company, it is completed through a high - premium acquisition. According to enterprise accounting standards, the part of the acquisition consideration that exceeds the fair value of the target's net assets will be included in the listed company's goodwill. Data shows that before the implementation of the industry fund model in 2014, Aier Eye Hospital's goodwill was only 249 million yuan; in 2016, the goodwill slightly increased to 448 million yuan; after the M&A pace accelerated comprehensively in 2017, the company's goodwill soared to 2.122 billion yuan. Since then, the scale of goodwill has continued to rise. As of the end of the first quarter of 2026, the balance of Aier Eye Hospital's goodwill has reached as high as 11.97 billion yuan.
Goodwill itself is not a risk. The core hidden danger lies in the pressure of goodwill impairment. If the actual profitability of the acquired hospitals fails to meet the acquisition expectations, the company needs to make provisions for goodwill impairment according to accounting standards. Among the hundreds of hospitals acquired by Aier Eye Hospital over the years, a large number of targets are located in prefecture - level and county - level sinking markets. The regional medical competition is complex, and the consumption ability is limited, so there is great uncertainty in the stability and growth of profitability. The impairment risk has already materialized: from 2017 to 2023, the company made a cumulative provision for goodwill impairment of 1.377 billion yuan; in 2025, it made another provision for goodwill impairment loss of 156 million yuan, continuously eroding the enterprise's profits.
In addition to the high - value goodwill pressure, the M&A expansion model that Aier Eye Hospital relies on has gradually become ineffective. After ten years of large - scale expansion, the resources of high - quality ophthalmic medical institutions available for M&A in the domestic market have been greatly depleted.
Currently, the ophthalmic medical market in first - and second - tier cities in China is approaching saturation, and the company's new expansion targets are mainly concentrated in the economically underdeveloped sinking markets. Limited by the regional consumption level and passenger flow scale, the profit cycle of new hospitals in the sinking market has been further extended, and the profit space has continued to narrow. In this regard, Chen Bang, the chairman of Aier Eye Hospital, publicly admitted at the 2024 annual general meeting of shareholders that the traditional M&A fund expansion model has basically completed its historical mission, and the company's future development focus will shift to improving the quality and efficiency of existing institutions. This also officially announced the end of Aier Eye Hospital's high - speed growth cycle driven by M&A.
More importantly, after the end of the old growth model, the company has not yet cultivated a second growth curve to take over, and the pressure of endogenous growth has continued to become prominent.
The performance growth rate data directly confirms the current situation of weak growth: in 2023, the growth rates of the company's operating revenue and net profit were as high as 26.43% and 33.07% respectively; in 2024, the two growth rates dropped significantly to 3.02% and 5.87%; in 2025, the operating revenue increased slightly by 6.53%, but the net profit declined by 8.88% year - on - year, setting the first annual negative growth of net profit since the company went public, showing obvious operating pressure.
After removing the filter of the industry M&A fund that beautifies the financial statements, the shortcomings of the company's main business are completely exposed. In recent years, a large number of competitors have flooded into the two core business tracks of refractive and optometry, the industry competition has intensified, the market has been significantly divided, and the gross profit margin of the company's core business has been continuously under pressure. The financial report shows that the refractive project and the optometry service project are the company's first and second largest sources of revenue, accounting for 37.5% and 25.89% of the revenue respectively. However, the profitability of the two core businesses has continued to decline. The gross profit margin of the refractive project decreased from 57.4% in 2023 to 55.01% in 2025, and the gross profit margin of the optometry service project decreased from 57.05% to 51.92%, and the profit space of the main business has been continuously compressed.
With the main - business growth blocked and the old expansion model failing, Aier Eye Hospital pins its hope of breaking the deadlock on listing in Hong Kong.
On the evening of April 23rd this year, Aier Eye Hospital issued a notice stating that the board of directors reviewed and approved the proposal to issue H - shares and list on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, officially launching the "A + H" dual - listing layout. The company said that this listing in Hong Kong aims to deepen the globalization strategy, build an international capital platform, and achieve the coordinated development of the physical business layout and the capital structure.
From a strategic perspective, listing in Hong Kong has certain positive significance. At present, overseas business has become the core new growth engine of Aier Eye Hospital. In 2025, the growth rate of the company's domestic operating revenue was only 5.11%, while the overseas operating revenue increased by 16.47% year - on - year, more than three times the growth rate of the domestic market. At present, the company has deployed more than 160 overseas medical institutions in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Hong Kong, China, and the compound growth rate of overseas business revenue in the past three years has exceeded 15%. Listing in Hong Kong can provide sufficient financial support for the company's overseas M&A expansion, technological R & D iteration, and overseas institutional operation.
However, it cannot be denied that listing in Hong Kong can only solve the company's overseas financing problem and cannot fundamentally resolve the company's core dilemmas. Core problems such as the end of the industry M&A expansion model, the high - hanging risk of tens of billions of yuan in goodwill impairment, the continuous decline of the gross profit margin of the domestic core business, and the insufficient endogenous growth power cannot be solved by capital listing. Aier Eye Hospital's transformation and breakthrough path still has a long way to go.