After submitting the significantly increased 2023 annual report, BOSS Direct Hire once again announced a large-scale equity incentive plan.
On the evening of March 17th, BOSS Direct Hiring announced that a total of 2.1555 million shares of stock rewards would be granted to 41 employees. Based on the closing price of HKD 73.05 on the previous trading day of BOSS Direct Hiring, the market value of these shares reached as high as HKD 157 million (approximately HKD 144 million). This is the fifth public equity incentive plan for BOSS Direct Hiring in nearly a year.
No performance target restrictions
On the evening of March 17th, BOSS Zhipin once again offered a "simple and direct" incentive plan, with the issuance price of shares being zero and the ownership of shares not subject to any performance targets.
The BOSS direct recruitment plan awarded 2.1555 million shares of stock rewards to 41 employees. All bonus shares shall be equally allocated on the first, second, third, and fourth anniversary of the sale date, and the transferee must continue to maintain a continuous service relationship with the company on the allocation date. In addition to this requirement, the issue price of the shares granted this time is zero, and no performance target restrictions have been specified.
BOSS Direct Hire stated that stock incentives are aimed at rewarding the franchisees for their tireless efforts towards the success of the company, providing them with incentives to serve their best, and providing more employees with opportunities to benefit from stock appreciation. Equity incentives will encourage them to strive for the overall interests of the company and shareholders to enhance the value of the company and its shares.
On March 15th, the closing price of BOSS's direct recruitment of Hong Kong stocks was HKD 73.05 per share. Based on this calculation, the market value of the aforementioned shares is approximately HKD 144 million. At present, the total market value of BOSS direct recruitment exceeds 60 billion yuan.
This is the fifth stock incentive for BOSS direct recruitment in nearly a year. On March 28, 2023, BOSS announced that 15.352 million shares of the company would be granted to an executive director and 833 employees in the form of restricted stock units. The issuance price of this equity incentive is also zero, and the stock price of the BOSS directly hired at that time was about HKD 69 per share.
On June 16, 2023, BOSS announced the grant of a total of 1.3356 million shares to two independent non-executive directors and 27 employees. At that time, the company's stock price was approximately HKD 63.45 per share.
The other two equity incentives were announced on September 18, 2023 and December 15, 2023, respectively. On September 18, 2023, the company granted 6.7273 million shares to 273 employees; On December 15, 2023, 2.8487 million shares were granted to two independent non-executive directors and 43 employees.
The above 5 equity incentives granted a total of approximately 28.37 million shares, with a market value exceeding HKD 2 billion based on the latest closing price. The BOSS direct recruitment announcement shows that the company's equity incentive expenses for 2022 and 2023 reached 690 million yuan and 1.057 billion yuan respectively.
According to BOSS's 2023 annual report, the company has a total of 5346 employees. Based solely on the number of participants in the 5 equity incentives mentioned above, a considerable proportion of employees directly hired by the BOSS already hold company equity.
Last year's performance skyrocketed
BOSS has recently released its fourth quarter financial report and annual report for 2023. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the company's revenue was 1.58 billion yuan, an increase of 46% from 1.08 billion yuan in the same period of 2022. The annual revenue in 2023 was 5.952 billion yuan, an increase of 31.9% from 4.511 billion yuan in 2022.
For the whole year of 2023, the net profit of BOSS's direct employment was about 1.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 925%. Including the 1.057 billion yuan spent on equity incentives, its adjusted net profit reached 2.156 billion yuan, a significant increase of 169.7% from the 800 million yuan in 2022.
At the user level, as of December 31, 2023, the average monthly active users for BOSS direct recruitment were 42.3 million, an increase of 47.4% from 28.7 million in the same period of 2022.
BOSS Zhipin stated that blue collar users (especially urban service industry users) are the highlight of user growth in 2023, with a year-on-year growth rate that outperforms all other industries. Compared to first tier cities and KA customers (referring to paying corporate customers who contribute 50000 yuan or more in revenue), the growth of low tier cities and small and medium-sized enterprises is also faster.
Zhao Peng, founder, chairman, and CEO of BOSS, stated that the company's unexpected financial performance was mainly driven by strong user growth, especially penetration into the blue collar industry, lower tier cities, and small and medium-sized enterprises. This growth reflects the company's continuous investment in technology and in-depth exploration of various user needs, which is also the key to helping the company further consolidate and expand its competitive advantage.
BOSS Chief Financial Officer Zhang Yu stated that the company's annual paid enterprise customer count has reached a historic high of 5.2 million, while maintaining rapid user growth, once again proving the effectiveness of its business model.