Origin Agritech Limited

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Thank you for standing by and welcome to Origin Agritech first half fiscal year 2026 results conference call. Please note that today's call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Matthew Abinanti of Strategic Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and thanks to all of you for joining us today on the Origin Agritech conference call. Joining us on the call today are Mr. Wei Bin Yan, Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Zhang James Chen, Chief Financial Officer, and Ms. Kate Lang, Director of Investor Relations. Before we begin, I would like to remind our listeners that any statements on this call that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Today's call includes forward-looking statements that address expected future business and financial performance and financial conditions. and contain words such as expect, anticipate, intend, plan, believe, seek, will, would, target, and similar expressions and variations. Forward-looking statements address matters that are uncertain, and they are not guarantees of future performance and are based on assumptions and expectations which may not be realized. They are based on management's current expectations assumptions, estimates, and projections about the company and the industry in which the company operates, but involve a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the company's control. Some of the important factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those discussed in forward-looking statements are failure to develop and market new products and optimally manage product life cycles, ability to respond to market acceptance, rules, regulations, and policies affecting our products, failure to appropriately manage process safety and product stewardship issues, changes in laws and regulations or political conditions, global economic and capital markets conditions such as inflation, interest and currency exchange rates, business or supply disruptions, natural disasters and weather events and patterns, ability to protect and enforce the company's intellectual property rights, and separation of underperforming or non-strategic assets or businesses. The company undertakes no duty or obligation to publicly revise or update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments or new information or otherwise should circumstances change, except as otherwise required by securities and other applicable laws. Although the company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that such expectations will turn out to be correct, and actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. You are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements contained herein and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. which are qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. With that, I would like to turn the call over to our first speaker, Mr. Wei-Bin Yan, Chief Executive Officer of Origin Agritech. Hello, Mr. Yan.

Thank you, Matthew, and good morning, good evening to everyone joining us from around the world. The six months ended March 31, 2026, represents the midpoint of the recovery phase of the three-stage strategic plan we announced in November 2024. As a reminder, that plan calls for recovery in 2025 and 2026, standing up from 2027 to 2029, on the return to industrial leadership from 2030 to 2032. When I addressed you on our fiscal year 2025 soaring score in February, I described the recovery work we had completed across our team building research capabilities, production facilities, and the sales infrastructure. This half year of the fiscal year 2026 was about taking that rebuilt foundation and beginning to convert it into a material commercial and scientific outcomes. I want to take you through several operational areas where we made tangible progress during the period. And then Dr. Chen will walk you through what that progress looked like in your financial statements. In November 2025, we hold a research and development conference that sharpens our focus on variety operations, variety development, and biotech commercialization, with the philosophy either be the first or be unique. We expanded breeding efforts and test scales and have made very good progress since then. Our 2025 winter South China breeding work generated over 30,000 new test cross compilations, including those by the most breakthrough germ blossoms. By using Our high-thread platform on the two leaf angel reduction gene licensed from China Agricultural University, we completed precision smart plant type improvement on the major varieties in the market to support our partners and ourselves to meet higher density trends in the industry. During this period, we have restored the sales team to 36 professionals deployed across the country, and we have rebuilt the regional presence, including, most importantly, a re-entry into northeastern China. In September 2025, we hosted a variety showcase on the technology seminar in Chongqing, which draws more than 200 dinars on the bonus. In early March of the year, we hold our 2026 annual marketing conference in Changsha, Hunan province. The total conference can win our subsidiary general managers regional marketing leadership and key distribution partners. Conclusion of that conference, we formally launched the Oyun 2026 new variety promotion program. Our integrated commercial campaigns for this marketing cycle and assigned KPI contracts with general managers of the six regional sales companies across China's principal corn production regions. With our OEM 2026 program on the performance contract with SANS, every manager, every region, and every product line now has a very clear annual target and personally owns the outcome. To fill our product portfolio with the most competitive varieties, we have deepened collaborations with top breeders across ecological zones, introduced or jointly assembled over 10,000 new corn compilations in our test pipeline this year by working with more than 30 outstanding breeders in the industry. And we now acquired a top-ranked variety Zhenpai 8-8 lime, which was jointly developed with the Hunan Agricultural University. Also, the CAU brought Zhonglongda 8-538, which performs strongly in northwest China. In November 2025, the Beijing Tongzhou District Marketing Civil Vision Administration approved the inclusion of GMO crop seed production license with Beijing Origin Seed Limited in the business scope.

I have reported to you previously.

We have two leadership matters subsequent to the reporting period that I want to address directly. First, in March 2026, we welcomed Dr. Jian Zhang to our board of directors as an independent director. Dr. Zhang has a 20-year above experience. in global crop biotechnology industry, with para senior roles at the DuPont Pioneer, Syngenta, and both. His appointment brings world-class biotechnology and international commercialization experience to our boards at exactly the right time in our development. We are also happy to welcome back Dr. James Chen, returned as chief financial officer. Many of you will know Dr. Chen from his prior service at Orange. To 10 years as CFO and one as CFO, Dr. Chen brings continuity, capital market sophistication, and a deep institutional understanding of the company. I'm pleased to have him back on the executive team and this is very helpful for me and I will turn the call over to him in a moment to walk through the numbers. Finally, during the reporting period, we completed an investment agreement that you alluded as direct equity investment by myself. I want our shareholders to know that my conviction in the past we are executing is reflected not just in my words on this call, also in my own financial state. With that, let me hand it over to Dr. Chen. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yan, and hello, everyone. It is great to be back addressing Origin Agrotech shareholders. I will walk you through our financial results for the six months ended March 31, 2026, with comparisons to the prior year period. Total revenues for the first half of fiscal 2026 were 49.2 million RMB, or 7.1 million U.S. dollars. compared with 72.3 million RMB in the first half of fiscal 2025, a decrease of approximately 31.9%. The decrease was mainly due to the strategic transition in the company's product portfolio, as we are focusing more on the sales of new cone seed products and reducing the external seed tooling service. Gross profit was 5.5 million RMB or 0.8 million U.S. dollars in the first half of fiscal 2026 compared with 8.1 million RMB in the prior year period. Total operating expenses for the first half of fiscal 2026 were 18.4 million RMB or 2.7 million U.S. dollars. compared with 32.8 million RMB in the prior year period, a 43.9% reduction. Let me break that down. General and administrative expenses declined sharply from 25.1 million RMB to 7.6 million RMB, a 69.8% year-over-year reduction. That reduction reflects the operating decline discipline now embedded in the business following the leadership restructuring completed in December 2025, and the consolidation of corporate functions on the Beijing origin. Selling and marketing expenses increased from 2.6 million RMB to 5.1 million RMB, up 93.3%. That increase is intentionally and entirely consistent with our strategy. It reflects the build-out of the 36% sales organization and the field deployment of the All-Yun 2026 commercial campaign. Research and development expenses were 5.7 million RMB compared with 5.2 million RMB in the prior year period. An increase of approximately 11.1 reflecting continued investment in the Hi3 platform and the SunFone licensed gene editing program and the new variety pipelines. Loss from operations for the first half of fiscal 2026 was 12.9 million RMB or 1.9 million U.S. dollars compared with a loss from operation of 24.7 million RMB in the prior year period, a reduction of 47.8% year-over-year. Net loss attributable to Origin AgriTech Limited was 14.4 million RMB, or $2.1 million, compared with a net loss of 25.6 million RMB in the prior year period. A 43.8% improvement. Basic and diluted net loss per share was 1.21 RMB or 0.17 US dollar compared with 3.55 RMB in the prior year period. Turning to the balance sheet. As of March 31, 2026, The company had a cash and cash equivalents of 13.4 million RMB or 1.9 million U.S. dollars, compared with 15.9 million RMB as of September 3, 2025. Inventories were 24.8 million RMB or 3.6 million U.S. dollars, compared with 14.4 million RMB at fiscal year end. That increase is seasonal, reflecting the inventory build into spring planting season. Short-term borrowings were 9.5 million RMB, or 1.4 million US dollars, compared with 8.0 million RMB at fiscal year end. Total liabilities were 168.1 million RMB, or 24.3 million US dollar compared with 162.2 million RMB at fiscal year end. With that financial summary, I will turn the call back to Mr. Yan for closing remarks.

Thank you. I want to leave you with three observations as we head into the second half of fiscal 2026. and the back half of the recovery phase. First, the operating leverage in the business is becoming visible in the numbers. A fundamental reduction in general administrative costs in a single year with a stable cross-margin and intentional investment in selling and marketing. financial signature of a company that has completed its restructuring and is now positioned to grow into its cost base. Second, our biotechnology platform is no longer a research story. It is becoming a commercial story. Tethering is recognized externally. The GMO varieties are in trial or in the channel. The connective tissue between the laboratory and the consumer and the customer is being built.

Third, the commercial cycle ahead is concrete and metric.

The spring planting season is on the way. Orient 2026 is in the field. Performance contracts are signed.

The 36th professional sales team is deployed against a defined target.

Our fiscal year, our first half of fiscal 2027 will tell the market whether the work of the past 18 months is converting into commercial outcomes.

Answer, I believe it will. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yen. Moreover, we did receive a number of questions in advance of today's call. Ms. Kate Lang will now answer the questions submitted by investors. Hello, Kate.

Hello, Matthew. Thank you. And thank everyone who has submitted questions. Let's hear about them.

Our first question. China has been gradually expanding the geography and acreage for approved commercial GMO corn planting over the past two years. How does that policy direction affect Origin's commercialization timeline? And is there a fiscal year in which investors should expect GMO-related revenue to become a visible line item?

The policy direction in China has been moving favorably over the past two years, with the gradual expansion of the geography and the accurate approval for commercial GMO corn planting. We are encouraged by that direction. However, I want to be careful now to characterize the future regulatory decisions. Those are decisions the Ministry of Agriculture makes on its own timeline, and I am not in a position to forecast them. What I can speak to is origin's position relative to the policy window. We hold the biosafety certificate for BBL 2-2, We have included GMO crop seed production within Beijing Origins Business Scope as of October 2025. We have two crop seed production and operation licenses in China. We have the Xinjiang Processing Facility restored to industry-leading standards. And we have the Origin Marker Biological Breeding Service Consortium with the China Golden Marker Biotech. which gave us a licensing pathway that monetizes the biotechnology independent of our own seed sales. The way I would frame it for shareholders is this. There are not many seed companies in China that hold both the biotechnology credentials and the production and distribution infrastructure to commercialize GMO corn at scale once the policy window fully opens. Origin is one of them.

You have stated a goal of being one of the top three Chinese corn seed companies by 2030 to 2032. What is the specific competitive position that lets Origin take share from its bigger competitors over the next several years?

I appreciate the question. The path to a top three position by 2030 to 2032 is not a path of outscaling the incumbents on conventional terms. It is a path of competing on biotechnology credentials in the Chinese seed industry that, in my view, is entering a decade of consolidation that rewards biotechnology credentialed players. HI3 corn haploid induction gene editing, recognized by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, In December 2025, as one of the top 10 major progresses in Chinese agricultural science, the Shunfeng Biotech patent license brings CUSSF01 into our editing toolkit. In-house AI-assisted breeding is running against more than 200,000 germplasm resources, two crop seed production and operation licenses, GMO Business Scope at Beijing Origin, the BBL2-2 Biosafety Certificate. That is a biotechnology stack that the conventional scale incumbents cannot easily match because it is the product of a sustained, focused 20-year investment in next-generation breeding. Over the next decade, I believe the market will increasingly value biotechnology credentials And the origin is well-positioned for that.

And on to our last question. You have referenced AI-assisted breeding on prior calls and in press releases. Can you describe what that means operationally? What specific tasks are being run on AI? And what is there a measurable improvement in breeding cycle time, trait identification, or hit rate that you can point to?

It is a fair question, and I want to answer it concretely because I know that AI can be an overused term in our industry and in the broader market. What we are running operationally is principally three things. First, the genomic selection models that score potential crosses against the trade targets we are pursuing, yield, drop tolerance, leaf angle, low gene resistance, and growth period. Using our germplasm database of more than 200,000 corn resources, the model identifies the highest probability candidates before we commit field seeding capacity to evaluate them. Second, image-based phenotyping in our research stations that captures plant performance data at a density and a consistency that manual evaluation cannot match, and feeds that data back into the selection models. Third, prediction of optimal donor-recipient pairings for the HI3 and the Shunfeng-licensed gene editing pipeline, which is where AI has the most direct impact on the speed of our biotechnology platform. The operational outcome we are working toward And the beginning to see is a reduction in the number of field students required to validate a candidate variety. That translates into lower R&D cost per validated treat and a faster commercialization path.

Thank you again to everyone for participating in today's call. We look forward to providing additional updates in the near future.

Goodbye.

We'd like to thank everybody for their participation on today's conference call. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.