---
title: "Black Sesame's New Energy 'Pipe Dream'"
description: "Black Sesame has been chasing a new energy dream for seven years. In 2017, it invested in a joint venture for new energy projects, but saw no results. Last year, it planned to invest heavily on its own, but the project was suspended due to external changes. Each announcement boosted its stock price temporarily, but it always fell back."
author: "范建"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2024-06-07"
language: "en"
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# Black Sesame's New Energy 'Pipe Dream'

> Black Sesame has been chasing a new energy dream for seven years. In 2017, it invested in a joint venture for new energy projects, but saw no results. Last year, it planned to invest heavily on its own, but the project was suspended due to external changes. Each announcement boosted its stock price temporarily, but it always fell back.

**A dream about new energy, Black Sesame has been chasing for 7 years.**
In 2017, the company formed a joint venture with third parties to participate in new energy project construction, investing substantial resources and funds, but never saw results.
Last year, the company planned to enter the field directly with heavy investment. **The announcement was grand, and the plan was detailed. However, it was much ado about nothing, as external conditions changed and the project was put on hold.**
Every time news of its new energy pursuit emerged, Black Sesame's stock price surged. Once the excitement faded, it plummeted.
**Seven Years of Unfulfilled Dreams**
Black Sesame's new energy dream began in 2017.
At that time, to broaden business, optimize industrial structure, cultivate new growth points, and improve profitability, the company again chose cross-industry investment.
Together with Shenzhen Tianchen and Dalian Zhiyun, it invested 1 billion yuan to establish Tianchen New Energy, with the company contributing 300 million yuan for a 30% stake. According to the plan, the first phase would **achieve an annual production capacity of 3GWh for power battery systems and 2GWh for cells.**
The implementation was fraught with setbacks. Due to changes in industrial policies, industry prospects became uncertain, so Tianchen New Energy temporarily slowed construction and reduced registered capital to 300 million yuan in 2021.
However, the industry environment changed again. To secure local support policies, Tianchen New Energy decided to increase capital in 2022.
Black Sesame was optimistic about the new energy market and decided to increase its investment. It planned to use its 100% equity in Jiangxi Xiaohei Xiaomi as payment, supplemented by its own funds, totaling 500 million yuan for the capital increase. After completion, the company would hold 59.09% of Tianchen New Energy and consolidate it into its financial statements.
At that time, Tianchen New Energy planned to build two bases in Nanjing and Nanchang, with investments of 4.5 billion and 3.5 billion yuan respectively, with first phases expected to be completed in June and August 2023.
A few months later, due to changes in local preferential policies, the capital increase was terminated.
Seven years have passed, and Black Sesame's new energy dream remains a bubble. The Tianchen New Energy project seems far from completion, and the company has yet to generate revenue from it.
Moreover, Tianchen New Energy is embroiled in numerous lawsuits, frequently sued by partners over contract disputes. In the past three years, the company and its legal representative, Tian Gang, have been restricted from high consumption over a dozen times.
Despite this, Black Sesame has not fully awakened from its new energy dream.
**Grand Plan Suspended**
Since the cooperative project was slow, the company decided to take the lead and control everything itself.
On April 1, 2023, the same day it decided to terminate the capital increase in Tianchen New Energy, Black Sesame announced it would enter the new energy sector directly.
The plan was to transform its wholly-owned subsidiary Jiangxi Xiaohei Xiaomi Food Co., Ltd. into a storage lithium battery production business and invest in a storage battery production base. This subsidiary was the asset previously intended for the capital increase.
Jiangxi Xiaohei Xiaomi was originally an important food production base. In 2021, the company moved its production lines to other bases, leaving land and factories idle. After evaluation, these idle assets were suitable for conversion into a storage battery production base.
Additionally, Jiangxi Province has made new energy a key industry, and the local government supports the transformation, offering preferential policies in key project applications, power supply, technical renovation subsidies, loan interest subsidies, and taxes.
According to the plan, the total investment is about 3.5 billion yuan, with two phases, expected to reach full production in January and October 2025. Ultimately, it would build three square lithium iron phosphate battery production lines, achieving an annual capacity of 8.9GWh of storage batteries, with annual revenue of 6 billion yuan and net profit of 360 million yuan.
At that time, the listed company had only 100-200 million yuan in cash, so the huge funding gap needed external financing.
Despite difficulties, this exciting plan was approved by shareholders with nearly unanimous votes on May 5, 2023.
**Unexpectedly, from the second half of 2023, the new energy battery market changed drastically, with prices of equipment, raw materials, and products falling off a cliff, causing major deviations from expectations.**
At a recent annual performance briefing, the company confirmed it had suspended the project. In 2023, it had already invested over 2 million yuan in preliminary preparation costs.
**Limited Space for Sesame Paste**
"Black~sesame paste~" The image of a mother carrying a pole with her child, selling black sesame paste on the streets, is a childhood memory for many born in the 1970s and 1980s.
Black Sesame has been selling its paste for 40 years, **and the company is a leading player in the paste food segment.** Despite its long history, brand recognition, and market share, the market capacity is limited, restricting growth and market attention.
Thus, the company has been exploring cross-industry transformations, trying agriculture, logistics, and other sectors, but without substantial results.
In 2017, it acquired Liduoduo, a NEEQ-listed company, for 700 million yuan, entering e-commerce.
With Liduoduo's consolidation, the listed company's performance improved temporarily. From 2017 to 2019, Liduoduo achieved net profits of 64.1637 million, 80.1702 million, and 75.3667 million yuan, meeting performance commitments.
However, **once the commitment period ended, Liduoduo's performance deteriorated, eventually turning to losses.** From 2020 to 2023, it recorded net profits of 41.5271 million, 31.3285 million, -188.1843 million, and -10.5488 million yuan, directly causing the listed company to lose over 100 million yuan in 2021 and 2022.
In 2023, Black Sesame's revenue fell 11.25% to 2.677 billion yuan, mainly due to a 353 million yuan decline in Liduoduo's e-commerce business. The company said this was due to optimizing e-commerce agency operations and reducing low-margin or capital-intensive businesses.
Its traditional food business has remained stable but has not shown significant growth.
**Despite owning an e-commerce company, Black Sesame's channels are very traditional,** with traditional offline distribution being the core of its food business. In 2023, traditional distributors increased by 224 to 2,256, while e-commerce distributors decreased from 24 to 16. Online direct sales revenue for the Southern Black Sesame brand fell from 155 million yuan to 140 million yuan.
At the annual performance meeting, an investor pointed out, "The company has been in e-commerce for years and should be experienced, but Douyin live streams always have few viewers," urging the company to improve its live-streaming sales capabilities.
Of course, investors are more concerned that the company's frequent high-profile forays into new energy boost stock prices in the short term but, lacking business support, quickly revert.
From late 2022 to early 2023, Black Sesame's stock surged to a high of 11.25 yuan on new energy hype, but has since fallen to 4.61 yuan (as of May 20 close).
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