Numbers

The Numbers

Helens prints as a statistical paradox: the business shrank 67% top-line since the 2021 peak while the stock still trades above net cash, the dividend yield sits near 17%, and 2025 saw the first reported net profit since the IPO cycle. The single metric that most explains the quote is net cash per share (roughly ¥0.64 on a ¥1.02-equivalent share price), because the income statement has been too volatile to anchor a multiple. The rerate or derate trigger from here is simple — Hi-Beer partnership daily sales per bar: if it stabilises near ¥4-5k, the asset-light model works and the cash box keeps paying down to holders; if it breaks below ¥3.5k, the franchise P&L follows self-op off the cliff and the dividend becomes a return of capital rather than a return on it.

A. Snapshot

B. Quality scorecard — durable cash box, fragile business

A dedicated Quality Score / Fair Value feed is not available for this name. The scorecard below builds a like-for-like read from the reported financials: balance-sheet strength is the pillar, operating volatility is the drag.

Two sentences: the balance sheet is the quality story — cash, no debt, capital return. The operating business scores poorly on growth and predictability but quietly well on unit-level profitability once restructuring noise is stripped.

C. Revenue & earnings power — a single-peak chart

The shape of the business is a single peak in FY2021 — the IPO year — followed by four consecutive years of top-line retreat. Adjusted NP tells a more stable story than reported NI, because reported earnings were dominated by a ¥713M lease-and-PP&E impairment in 2022 and smaller office write-downs in 2024. FY2025's reported net income rebound to ¥102M is the first clean profit print since the IPO.

Adjusted NP margin hit 24% in FY2023 and 13% in FY2024 on a much smaller base. The improvement in FY2025 to a 17% reported net margin reflects (a) the end of the big impairment cycle and (b) interest income from the ¥670M term-deposit stash doing real work.

D. Cash generation — the earnings are real, impairments are the noise

The left chart is the key one: operating cash flow has been positive every single year, including the -¥1.6B IFRS loss year of 2022. That is the canonical signal of non-cash impairment. Capex normalised sharply after the 2021 buildout — FY2024 capex was only ¥8M vs ¥994M in FY2021 — so FCF has now been positive two years running. Trailing 3-year FCF / adjusted-NP conversion runs over 140%.

E. Capital allocation — the cash box opens

F. Balance sheet health — fortress in the rubble

Two reads: equity fell ¥700M from FY2023 to FY2024 — that is the dividend paying out. Non-current liabilities collapsed from ¥1.06B (peak 2021) to ¥133M (2024) as self-operated leases rolled off and were not replaced. No bank debt at any point in the 5-year history. The company is roughly as leveraged as an individual with a bank account.

G. Valuation — the critical chart

H. Peer comparison — Helens is the outlier

One sentence on the peer gap: Helens is the only name in this sector that pays out a double-digit yield — and it is doing so while revenue contracts, which is either the best or the worst possible signal depending on whether FY2025's ¥102M net income print represents a new steady state or a one-year tax-assisted gap year.

I. Fair value — scenario box

A formal fair-value feed is not available for this name. The triangulation below uses three simple frames and reports them as a range.

Calibration point: Stockopedia / consensus analyst target is HKD 1.35 (3 buys, 0 sells); Daiwa's Oct-2024 upgrade to Buy had a HKD 4.40 target on a pre-dividend-payout basis that now looks stale. Marketscreener 12-month target is HKD 1.75 (3 buys) on top of the 2025 turnaround narrative. The base case is effectively a hold at today's price; the bull case is the rerating trade; the bear case is the capital-return-ends-and-business-erodes trade.

Close — confirm, contradict, watch

The numbers confirm that Helens is a cash box first and an operating business second — ¥806M of cash and term deposits on a ¥1.28B market cap, zero bank debt, and FY2024's ¥593M dividend plus the November 2025 10%-buyback authorisation leave no ambiguity about management's capital-return intent. They contradict the popular read that Helens is a going-concern disaster — operating cash flow has been positive every year including the 2022 impairment year, FY2025 produced the first clean IFRS profit (¥102M) since the IPO, and bar-level contribution margins are at a cycle high of 74%. What to watch next year is the Hi-Beer daily sales figure per partnership bar — stable at ¥4k+ means the asset-light pivot works and today's dividend is sustainable; a drop below ¥3.5k breaks the franchise receivables line and the cash-return story goes with it. The second watchpoint is whether the buyback actually gets executed at current prices — a float at 31% and a founder at ~28% means the marginal HKD 250M of buyback capacity could mechanically support the quote.