Finance Talk | Yiyaton's Excess Guarantee Hidden Dangers, Loose Provisioning of Bad Debts to Cover Up Profits

Interface News Reporter | Yuan Yingqi

As the “Number One Supply Chain Stock in A-shares,” Yi Asia Tong (002183.SZ) has been on a transformation path in recent years. Interface News reporters found that behind this company’s transformation, abnormal financial signals are becoming increasingly prominent. On one side, hundreds of millions of yuan in funds sit idle on the books; on the other, short-term borrowings are high, and cash flows from financing are continuously net outflows; meanwhile, the parent company has provided over 100 billion yuan to subsidiaries, yet the bad debt provisions are far below industry peers. By the third quarter of 2025, the company’s net profit minus non-recurring gains and losses has turned from profit to loss, amounting to 21.0651 million yuan.

What is the true operating nature of this supply chain giant? What signals are hidden behind the “dual high” of deposits and loans?

The “Dual High” Fund Puzzle

In the supply chain management industry, efficient capital turnover is vital for survival. However, recent financial reports of Yi Asia Tong depict a paradoxical picture: the company’s cash on hand has remained at hundreds of billions of yuan for years, while short-term debt continues to rise, forming a typical “dual high” dilemma.

Financial data shows that as of the end of 2024, Yi Asia Tong’s cash on hand reached 13.266 billion yuan, while short-term borrowings increased to 22.624 billion yuan. Entering 2025, this abnormal structure has not improved: the third quarter report shows cash of 10.988 billion yuan, and interest-bearing liabilities (short-term loans + non-current liabilities due within one year) reached 17.919 billion yuan. More concerning is that in 2024, interest expenses exceeded 1.1 billion yuan, which sharply contradicts the “idle” funds—if the funds were truly available, the company could have repaid some high-interest debt to optimize its financial structure.

Compared with industry peers such as Xiamen Xiangyu and Wuchan Zhongda, Yi Asia Tong’s interest rate spread between deposits and loans has widened abnormally. Industry insiders reveal that generally, supply chain companies need to maintain certain liquidity but manage funds centrally to minimize financial costs. Yi Asia Tong, however, shows a divergence of fund sedimentation and rising debt. Wind industry data indicates that in 2024, Xiamen Xiangyu’s cash/short-term liabilities ratio was 0.77; Wuchan Zhongda’s was 1.07. The industry average for trade companies was about 0.8. Yi Asia Tong’s ratio was only 0.59, below the industry median.

The answer lies in the notes to Yi Asia Tong’s financial statements. The 2025 semi-annual report shows that out of 10.337 billion yuan in cash, restricted funds amount to 7.2 billion yuan (70%), mainly used for bill deposits and pledge loans. This means that only about 3.1 billion yuan are freely available, far insufficient to cover short-term debts. This “paper wealth” phenomenon signals liquidity risk.

If the “dual high” of deposits and loans is merely an abnormal static indicator, then Yi Asia Tong’s cash flow dynamics reveal a deeper crisis. Reviewing the cash flow statements of the past three years, Yi Asia Tong exhibits a cash flow pattern opposite to traditional companies: operating and investing activities have been continuously net inflows, while financing activities show large-scale net outflows.

Analyzing Yi Asia Tong’s cash flow since 2017, the company has a total net inflow of 9.584 billion yuan from operating activities, 678 million yuan from investing activities, and a cumulative net outflow of 10.931 billion yuan from financing activities, mainly used for debt repayment. In earlier years, operating cash inflows were large, and financing net outflows were also significant. In recent years, as the scale shrank, operating cash flow decreased, and financing outflows also reduced accordingly.

Breaking down the financing details provides clearer insight: in the third quarter of 2025, Yi Asia Tong received 21.733 billion yuan in cash from borrowings, but repaid 26.657 billion yuan. Key indicator calculations show that its short-term debt rollover coverage ratio (net operating cash flow / interest-bearing debt) is even less than 0.1, far below the safety threshold. Yi Asia Tong’s business model is debt-driven; even with “operating + investing” inflows, funds are still insufficient to cover debt needs, relying on “new borrowings to repay old” to barely maintain liquidity.

CPA Xu Peiling told Interface News that “for asset-heavy or high-turnover industries, continuous net outflows from financing are not necessarily abnormal, provided that operating cash flow can support investment returns and debt repayment. The problem with Yi Asia Tong is that its cash-generating capacity is far from enough to cover the massive ‘blood loss’ from debt, and this structural imbalance is the root cause of the liquidity crisis.”

Excess Collateral Risks

Yi Asia Tong’s funding difficulties are not limited to internal “bleeding”; guarantee risks are like a ticking time bomb ready to explode.

Interface News found that as of January 2026, Yi Asia Tong’s external guarantee balance reached 14.585 billion yuan, while the net assets attributable to shareholders were about 10.549 billion yuan—meaning the total guarantee amount exceeds net assets by 138%.

More alarmingly, this is not a static risk figure. As of January 2026, guarantees for Yi Asia Tong and its controlling subsidiaries amounted to 34.201 billion yuan, with a contracted guarantee amount of 22.576 billion yuan, accounting for 244.47% of the latest audited net assets; guarantees for companies outside the consolidated scope totaled 5.25 billion yuan, with actual guarantees of 1.43 billion yuan, and contracted guarantees of 2.2 billion yuan, representing 23.83% of net assets. This indicates that a large amount of guarantee capacity remains unused, and total guarantees could further increase, continuously expanding risk exposure.

The core hidden danger of guarantee risk lies not only in its scale but also in the poor creditworthiness of the guaranteed entities, which are generally high-debt, high-risk. Interface News found that in recent years, Yi Asia Tong’s external guarantees mainly involved subsidiaries and related parties, whose asset-liability ratios generally far exceed the 70% risk warning line, with some even insolvent. For example, one guaranteed entity, Yitong New Materials Co., Ltd., has a debt ratio of 96.71%; another, Shenzhen Shangfutong Network Technology Co., Ltd., has a debt ratio of 100.97%, already insolvent. Moreover, between July and September 2025, Yi Asia Tong issued risk alerts due to guarantee objects exceeding the 70% debt ratio.

Industry analyst Li Liping told Interface News that supply chain companies tend to have relatively high debt levels, and if the guaranteed entities’ debt ratios exceed 70%, their repayment capacity is significantly reduced, and default risks increase sharply. In extreme cases, even partial defaults among guarantee objects could impact Yi Asia Tong’s net assets.

More strangely, Interface News found that in the 2025 third-quarter report and recent balance sheets, Yi Asia Tong did not make any provisions for these high-risk guarantees. According to the “Accounting Standard for Business Enterprises No. 13—Contingencies,” when a guarantee is likely to cause an outflow of economic benefits and the amount can be reliably measured, the enterprise should recognize a contingent liability to reflect potential risks.

A senior auditor told Interface News that “failing to recognize provisions for high-risk guarantees either means the company believes the default risk is low and does not need provisions, or it underestimates potential risks by not recognizing provisions, thereby inflating current profits. This approach violates the principle of prudence and conceals the true risk situation from the market.”

Parent Company’s Hundred Billion Intercompany Loans and Loose Bad Debt Provisions Mask Profits

If the “dual high” deposits and loans and excessive guarantees are external risks, then the nearly hundred billion yuan of intercompany funds reveal deeper internal management issues—namely, the parent company continuously injecting large sums into subsidiaries, which may have lost independent financing ability, and the company’s lenient bad debt provisions seem to underestimate risks, artificially boosting consolidated profits.

The 2025 third-quarter report shows that “other receivables” on the parent company’s balance sheet amount to 13.357 billion yuan, while in the consolidated report, this item suddenly drops to 3.534 billion yuan, a difference of 9.823 billion yuan.

Xu Peiling told Interface News that “the core reason for this difference is that the parent company has provided large-scale, ongoing non-operating loans to subsidiaries, creating huge internal receivables. These loans, after offsetting, are not included in the consolidated other receivables.”

This raises the question: Have many of Yi Asia Tong’s subsidiaries lost their independent financing capacity and become “bleeding points” that rely on continuous parent company funding to survive?

Given the high debt levels of the guaranteed subsidiaries, the answer is likely yes. Those with debt ratios exceeding 90%, or even insolvent, obviously cannot generate enough funds through their own operations nor obtain external financing, and can only rely on parent loans to stay afloat. The parent company’s ongoing capital injections not only increase its own liquidity pressure but also severely restrict its cash flow, further amplifying the company’s overall liquidity risk.

According to Wind data, Yi Asia Tong’s transactions with related parties amounted to 10.855 billion yuan in 2024 (including procurement and sales to related parties), rising to 11.605 billion yuan in 2025.

More critically, amid the large intercompany fund transfers and receivables, Yi Asia Tong’s bad debt provisions are unusually lenient, significantly lower than those of leading industry peers.

Yi Asia Tong applies two methods for accounts receivable provisioning: “individual item provisioning” and “portfolio provisioning,” with about 95% of provisions made via the latter, which is the main method. The “portfolio provisioning” uses an aging migration model, adjusting for historical default rates and forward-looking factors, with specific standards: within 1 year at 1%, 1-2 years at 5%, 2-3 years at 15%.

Comparing with industry leaders, Yi Asia Tong’s bad debt provisioning standards are much more lenient. For example, Xiamen Xiangyu’s aging classification is more detailed, with higher provisioning rates: 0-3 months at 1%, 4-6 months at 2%, 7-12 months at 5%, 1-2 years at 10%, 2-3 years at 30%, over 3 years at 100%. Wuchan Zhongda’s standards are similarly strict, with 0.8% for within 1 year, 30% for 1-2 years, 80% for 2-3 years, and 100% beyond 3 years.

Besides the differences in “portfolio provisioning,” the “individual item provisioning” also varies significantly. For receivables that have shown signs of uncollectibility, Yi Asia Tong’s provisioning rate is only about 50%, whereas Xiamen Xiangyu provisions at 80% for such receivables.

An auditor told Interface News that “accounts receivable in the supply chain industry tend to be large and turnover is fast. Receivables over a year old pose significantly increased risks, especially related-party receivables, where risks are more easily hidden due to related-party relationships. Therefore, stricter bad debt provisioning policies are necessary to prevent risks. Under the background of Yi Asia Tong’s large capital injections into subsidiaries and high debt levels, its provisioning standards are far below industry peers, which clearly does not conform to the principle of prudence. This approach essentially underestimates bad debt risks, reduces provisions, and artificially inflates consolidated profits.”