On August 10, Ever Glory United Holdings Limited, a Singapore-based机电engineering services provider, officially submitted its application to the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for a dual primary listing. The company plans to land on the Hong Kong stock market, with ICBC International serving as the sole sponsor. Although it is already listed on the main board of the Singapore Exchange, this dual listing strategy aims primarily to broaden financing channels and optimize its shareholder structure.
From a financial perspective, the company's revenue and profit have shown a steep upward trend. As of the filing date, its order book has exceeded 1 billion Singapore dollars, ranking among the top in the industry, and it possesses high entry barriers through qualifications. However, beneath the impressive scale data, the inherent attributes of its project-based business model, the non-organic growth path driven by acquisitions, and the potential tightness in its operating cash flow constitute significant risk factors that cannot be ignored. The quality of its growth and financial resilience require further validation.
Acquisition-Driven Outsourcing Creates "Paper Prosperity" Amidst Internal Slowdown
Ever Glory's financial data in recent years shows a significant leap in scale. From fiscal years 2023 to 2025, the company's revenue increased from 47.478 million Singapore dollars to 122 million, while net profit for the period grew from 6.831 million to 20.122 million. The compound annual growth rates for revenue and net profit were 60.0% and 71.6%, respectively. In the first half of 2026, revenue even recorded a year-on-year increase of over 200%. However, this steep performance curve does not stem from organic growth in its core business but is deeply reliant on the consolidation effect driven by external acquisitions. The momentum for endogenous expansion is questionable.
The prospectus reveals that the company completed acquisitions of Fire-Guard in February 2024 and Guthrie Engineering in July 2025, with total consideration of 4.2 million and 46.034 million Singapore dollars, respectively. Among them, Guthrie Engineering, a large-scale acquisition far exceeding Fire-Guard in size, has been fully consolidated since the second half of 2025, directly boosting the revenue and profit base for the current and subsequent accounting periods. If these non-recurring acquisition contributions are excluded, the revenue compound growth rate of the company's original business lines would be significantly revised downward. The narrative of "explosive growth" is largely built on financial consolidation through capital operations, rather than the result of technological barrier improvements or natural market share expansion.
Furthermore, the risk of imbalance in the company's revenue structure is intensifying. The revenue share of its core electrical engineering business segment rose from 54.7% in 2025 to 63.7% in the first half of 2026, showing an excessive reliance on a single business line. In an upward phase of the industry cycle, this structure can amplify the benefits of operating leverage. However, once the core sector faces policy adjustments, intensified competition, or a contraction in client capital expenditure, fluctuations in that single segment will drag down performance through its high revenue contribution. Meanwhile, the revenue contributions from the company's other three business lines are continuously shrinking. The company's claimed positioning as a "comprehensive机电engineering services provider" shows clear resource allocation bias and business disconnection in its revenue structure, and the synergistic effects of diversification remain to be verified.
Order Book Boom Conceals Cash Flow Concerns and Approaching Industry Cycle Test
From an industry fundamentals perspective, the Singapore机电engineering market is in a steady expansion channel. According to prospectus data, the market size (by output value) grew from 1.97 billion Singapore dollars in 2020 to 4.18 billion in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of approximately 16.2%. Looking ahead, the market is expected to further expand from 4.18 billion Singapore dollars in 2025 to 5.99 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of about 7.5%. Against the backdrop of overall economic recovery and ongoing infrastructure construction, there is indeed some support on the demand side of the industry. However, the improvement in aggregate data does not equate to an improvement in the competitive landscape. The market growth rate is significantly slowing from 16.2% over the past five years to 7.5% over the next five years. This halving of growth indicates that the industry is shifting from a phase of "incremental dividends" to one of "stock competition." For Ever Glory, an entity within this environment, the pressure from this turning point is substantial.
When the expansion rate of the industry pie drops sharply from double digits to single digits, leading companies, in order to maintain their own revenue growth rates, will inevitably tend to compete for limited new projects through pricing strategies. This will directly compress the industry's average bid gross margin. The company's gross margin sharply declined from 23.07% in 2024 to 15.70%, reflecting, to some extent, the rising intensity of industry competition. Additionally, although the company ranks fourth in Singapore with a market share of about 2%, the effectiveness of L6 qualification as an entry barrier may be overestimated during a period of slowing industry growth. While it limits the number of new entrants, there is no substantial differentiation barrier among existing L6 license holders. The decisive factor in project bidding ultimately returns to price and service responsiveness. The L6 qualification can keep out "outsiders," but it cannot prevent "peers" from engaging in price competition.
The order book is the most easily inflated valuation anchor for Ever Glory in the market. As of June 30, 2026, the company's total order book was 838 million Singapore dollars, which further climbed to 1 billion by August 3. This ample order reserve theoretically covers revenue expectations for the next 2 to 3 years, forming one of the core bullish arguments for institutional investors. However, the value realization for engineering companies does not depend on the "paper size" of the order book, but on the actual rate and quality of its conversion into revenue and cash. "Order conversion efficiency" and "contract asset recovery cycle" are the key variables.机电engineering, by nature, is a project-based business model. Its profitability is highly dependent on multiple variables such as the project bid gross margin, construction progress management, change order confirmation cycles, client settlement pace, and fluctuations in foreign worker labor costs. Scale expansion does not equate to a simultaneous improvement in profit quality. Financial data shows that the company's gross margin has experienced significant volatility: 23.07% in 2023, a sharp decline to 15.70% in 2024, and a recovery to 19.20% in 2025, but still not returning to 2023 levels. This fluctuation trajectory reflects uncertainties in the company's project cost estimation, construction deviation control, and supply chain management. Meanwhile, the company's general and administrative expenses surged from 1.525 million Singapore dollars in 2023 to 8.8 million in 2025, an increase of 477%, and this rapid expense expansion is continuously eroding profit margins.
More concerning is the degree of tightness in the capital chain. As of the end of June 2026, the company's cash and cash equivalents on hand were only about 24 million Singapore dollars, while the net cash flow from operating activities for the full year 2025 was only about 10 million Singapore dollars. The ratio of operating cash to net profit for the same period was significantly below 1, reflecting a low "cash conversion rate" of profits. This is a typical characteristic of engineering projects where contract assets and accounts receivable continuously accumulate, tying up working capital. Considering that the acquisition of Guthrie Engineering has already consumed a large amount of cash reserves, the company's liquidity buffer is extremely limited. For engineering companies that require upfront funding for construction, the efficiency of working capital turnover directly affects whether existing orders can be smoothly progressed into recognized revenue. Furthermore, the company's finance costs surged sharply from 39,000 Singapore dollars in 2023 to 1.134 million in 2025, an increase of over 28 times. This indicates that the scale of interest-bearing debt is rapidly expanding, and the rising cost of debt financing will further erode profit margins. The company's balance between scale expansion and financial security is facing increasingly severe tests.