The pig and chicken breeder has filed to list in Hong Kong, with mid-sized underwriter CMS International as the sponsor

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Key Takeaways:

• Tinoos Group has filed for a Hong Kong IPO, reporting gross profit for both its Qingyuan chicken and pork businesses both fell substantially last year
• The meat producer's revenue dropped by more than 10% in 2025 to 4.3 billion yuan on falling meat prices, sending the company's bottom line into the red

Chickens from the city of Qingyuan in Guangdong province are renowned throughout China, lauded as "top of the roost" among regional chicken breeds. That fame, combined with a hot IPO market, are driving top Qingyuan chicken breeder Guangdong Tinoos Group Co. Ltd. to file for a Hong Kong listing, aiming to attract investors with the fame of its high-profile core product. Mid-sized underwriter CMS International is sole sponsor for the deal, indicating it's likely to be relatively small, raising less than $100 million.

Founded in 2003 as a poultry farmer, Tinoos has evolved into one of China's leading providers of high-quality meat products. The company runs a vertically integrated whole-industry-chain system centered on its core Qingyuan chickens, pigs and other meat products, encompassing breeding, feed production, slaughter, and food processing, as well as brand marketing.

Tinoos is the clear king of China's Qingyuan chicken roost, accounting for about two-thirds of the national market, according to third-party data in the prospectus. It ranks sixth among all yellow-feathered broiler providers in China. Its pork business, based in the city of Chongqing, ranks tenth among pig breeders in Southwest China.

Boosted by policy support and growing "brand" awareness, Tinoos points out that the market for Qingyuan chickens is expected to expand from 1.88 billion yuan ($276 million) in 2025 to 2.92 billion yuan by 2030, representing 10.4% annual growth.

But don't let its Qingyuan reputation fool you. While Tinoos is indeed China's largest supplier of Qingyuan chickens, its core business is actually pork. In 2025, its pig business accounted for 62.4% of the company's revenue, reaching 2.66 billion yuan. Qingyuan and other local chickens accounted for just 22.9% of the pie, amounting to 975 million yuan.

The company's gross profit last year totaled 457 million yuan, sliding 49% year-on-year. Within that, the live pig business supplied 306 million yuan, or 67.1% of the total, down 53.5% year-on-year; gross profit from Qingyuan and other chickens was a slimmer 57 million yuan, down by an even sharper 67.6%, accounting for just 12.5% of the total.

The gross profit plunge owed mostly to tumbling prices. The prospectus reveals that while Tinoos' live pig sales volume was flat last year at 1.4 million heads, the average selling price fell 16.8% from 2,281.6 yuan per head in 2024 to 1,897.8 yuan last year.

The story was similar for Qingyuan chickens, whose average price fell 15.9% from 37.2 yuan per head in 2024 to 31.3 yuan last year. Unlike pork, sales volume for the chicken business actually grew 8.2% year-over-year last year to reach 31.1 million heads. Furthermore, a 2% year-on-year rise in the first quarter for yellow-feathered broilers, which tend to move in tandem with Qingyuan chickens, shows chicken prices may finally be stabilizing.

War fallout

The falling prices caused Tinoos' revenue to drop by 10.8% to 4.26 billion yuan last year, dragging the company into the red with a 102 million yuan annual loss, reversing a profit of 890 million yuan in 2024. Looking ahead, a greater cause for concern is whether the Middle East conflict could pressure the company's costs for feed, its biggest expense. Feed costs alone have accounted for between 66% and 70% of Tinoos' cost of sales over the last three years, consisting mostly of corn and soybean meal.

The corn-growing process requires intensive use of nitrogen fertilizer that generally accounts for 60% to 70% of total fertilizer costs for the crop. The main raw material for nitrogen fertilizer production is urea, which is typically refined from natural gas. That's where the Middle East comes in, since its high capacity for low-cost natural gas has given it more than 30% of the global export market for urea.

The ongoing U.S. and Israeli war with Iran, and resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz, caused the price of urea to briefly soar above $700 per ton in April, representing a massive 80% increase over February. Observers believe the big price jump will ultimately trickle down into feed prices, which could deal a fresh blow to Tinoos as it struggles with low pork and chicken prices.

Oversupplied pork market

Tinoos' reliance on pigs, despite the fame of its chickens, could also be problematic due to slowing demand for pork, the country's most popular meat. China's pork production capacity reached 720 million heads in 2025, translating to just 1.8% average annual growth for that market between 2021 and 2025. A saturated market and falling prices have led research institutes to forecast that China's pork production capacity will start to fall, dropping to 680 million heads by 2030. That means Tinoos could also be forced to retire some of its older, less efficient capacity, pressuring its revenue.

Other pork-related stocks include WH Group (0288.HK) and Joycome Foods (1610.HK), which currently trade at price-to-book (P/B) ratios of 1.3 times and 0.67 times, respectively. Tinoos is far smaller than WH Group, whose high valuation also owes to its controlling stake in U.S.-listed Smithfield Foods (SFD.US). Tinoos is also hamstrung by weaker prospects for China's pork industry, and is unlikely to get much of a lift from its high-profile but much smaller chicken business. That combination of factors means a targeted P/B ratio of 0.7 times for its IPO, similar to Joycome's, might be all that Tinoos can hope for. If it aims too high, it could find a lack of investor appetite for the stock, causing its shares to sink on their trading debut.

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Benzinga Disclaimer: This article is from an unpaid external contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.