Cango Inc. (NYSE:CANG) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Your next question comes from Sophia Xu with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Sophia Xu: Thank you. I have two questions. The first question is related to the automotive financing facilitation. Well, based on the data, we can see that the company’s incremental revenue from car loans is already very small. So does that mean that you are going to stop lease business completely? And why do you decide to do so? And another related question is about the overdue ratio, we are seeing that the overdue ratio continued to grow. So when do you expect that inflection point to appear? That is, when do you expect the overdue ratio start to go down? And my second question is relating to the dealership network. And as you have mentioned before that the company now serves nearly 50,000 dealers in the lower tier markets. So what is the size of the dealer network that a company expects to reach? And well, what will be the market share?

Jiayuan Lin: Thank you. I will try to take your two questions. The first question about the car, I mean, automotive financing facilitation business. Okay. So given the current macroeconomic conditions expanding this business actually may cause fluctuations in our rates leading to significant cash flow pressure and even threatening the company’s survival. So such an asset — business will be a huge challenge to our transformation. So we are not really giving up the automotive financing facilitation business but have proactively been reducing its size. Actually, we have incorporated these auto financing facilitation services into our Haoche app. In the third quarter, our overdue ratios rose slightly due to the pandemic’s impact based on our current business development strategy the overdue ratios will remain at the present level for some time to come as the existing those are settled however, the overdue ratios will drop to zero there’s not going to be an inflection point.

About your second question that is our dealership networking in the low tier markets. So far, our platform has a total of about 12,000 dealers, including both new car dealers and used car dealers. So at this stage, we are focusing on migrating dealers to our platform through promotions and developing the dealer’s habit of using our app, which will in turn, we believe drive improvements to our app functions and user experience, so that we can provide better services to our dealers. Thank you.

Operator: . Your next question comes from Brian Lantier with Zacks. Please go ahead.

BrianLantier: Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you so much for holding this call. It’s nice to see a little bit of stabilization in the business. I think that’s good news. The first question I guess is sort of big picture, ways to increase shareholder value for the company, you obviously had the two special dividends this year and you still have an incredibly strong balance sheet. Looking out, how does the company prioritize that at the management and board level, where are your preferences to try and drive shareholder value investments in R&D share buybacks, additional dividends, or perhaps even acquisitions in the future? Do you have an internal preference among those? And then secondly, we’re hearing after the third quarter from a lot of the Chinese auto manufacturers.

They’re ramping up production but we’re hearing the dealers sell through is going a little bit lower. So we’re hearing about some inventory build at the dealer level. Wondering how you think that could impact 2023, if there is excess inventory on dealer loss? Thank you.

Jiayuan Lin: Thank you, Brian, I will try to take your two questions. The first question actually is about the use of our capital. Well, actually we have always been committed to maximizing shareholder value. But with this commitment in mind all our decisions related to the allocation of our capital are made the following careful consideration. In fact, we don’t have any particular preferences. We distributed dividends twice this year, along with our ongoing share buyback program. And as far MMA and R&D investments, these decisions really depends on their compatibility with our business development plans. If the right opportunities come along, we definitely will consider them. That is to say we will plan our cash deployments from a holistic strategic perspective based on a company’s business position, business model development and our expenditure programs as well as of course external opportunities.