New Stock Preview | Can Ke Liang Information take the inside track to overtake by IPO, competing with "state-owned teams"?

Recently, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange disclosed the listing application of Shanghai Ke Liang Information Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Ke Liang Information"). This company, which had failed twice in its attempts to list on the A-share Science and Technology Innovation Board, ultimately chose to pursue a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Public information shows that as early as January 2021, Ke Liang Information had signed a guidance agreement with Anxin Securities with the intention of listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, but after two years, the attempt ended in failure; the company restarted guidance with Haitong in January 2024, only to terminate it again in July 2025. After two unsuccessful attempts, the company decided to list in Hong Kong, with Sinolink (Hong Kong) acting as the sole sponsor. In terms of market position, Ke Liang Information is not an ordinary company. According to Frost & Sullivan data, in 2025, it ranked third among Chinese digital energy solution providers in the new power system industry with a market share of 5.5%, with the two ahead of it being the "national teams" under State Grid and China Southern Power Grid. Among independent third-party vendors, Ke Liang Information is the largest player in this field in China. The core business of Ke Liang Information revolves around providing simulation testing solutions for the entire lifecycle of new power systems and high-end equipment electrical systems. Against the backdrop of the deepening of the "dual carbon" strategy and the emergence of a power grid featuring a "high proportion of new energy and high proportion of power electronics," this technological path has evolved from being a "luxury" to a "necessity." Ke Liang Information's project experience is also quite convincing: in the field of new power systems, the company was involved in the world's first flexible DC grid projectthe Zhangbei Project, and China's first large-scale offshore wind power DC grid project the Rudong Project; in the high-end equipment field, its presence was also felt in projects such as the domestically-produced large aircraft C919 project and the 600 km/h high-speed maglev system. Now, by abandoning the A-share market and turning to the Hong Kong stock exchange for IPO, whether the company can win real gold and silver from investors still needs to be found in its financial fundamentals. Fluctuations in profit performance and pressure on operating cash flow Looking at the financial performance, Ke Liang Information has maintained steady growth in revenue in recent years. From 2023 to 2025, the company's revenue was approximately RMB 425 million, RMB 495 million, and RMB 600 million respectively, with year-on-year growth rates of 16.6% and 21.1%, showing an accelerating trend. However, the performance on the profit side is far less stable than that of revenue: the annual net profits during the same period were RMB 28.74 million, RMB 26.134 million, and RMB 93.031 million, with a year-on-year decrease of approximately 9.1% in 2024, and a sharp increase of 256% in 2025. In terms of revenue structure, products and solutions are the absolute backbone of Ke Liang Information. During the reporting period, this business contributed revenue of RMB 416 million, RMB 486 million, and RMB 591 million, accounting for 97.9%, 98.2%, and 98.6% of total revenue respectively, while supporting income such as technical services accounted for only about 2% and can be almost ignored. Within this core business, the company's strategic focus is increasingly shifting towards new power systems. The proportion of revenue from new power systems has increased from 74.8% in 2023 to 84.7% in 2025, while the proportion of revenue from high-end equipment electrical systems has shrunk from 23.1% to 13.9%. In 2025, revenue from this business plummeted by 36.23% year-on-year, reaching only RMB 82.886 million. In terms of regional distribution, revenue from mainland China accounted for over 99% during the reporting period, with less than 0.3% coming from overseas. It is worth noting that, while profit fluctuations have occurred, the company's cash flow situation has not been good. In 2023, the company recorded a net profit of RMB 28.74 million, with a net cash flow from operating activities of RMB 25.493 million, which was within a normal range; but in 2024, this deteriorated sharply, with a net profit of RMB 26.134 million and a negative net cash flow from operating activities of RMB -1.458 million; in 2025, although net profit surged to RMB 93.031 million, operating cash flow turned positive to RMB 60.857 million, but the former was still more than RMB 32 million higher than the latter. The cash flow strain partly comes from the increasing inventory levels. According to the prospectus data, inventory increased from RMB 77.027 million in 2023 to RMB 137 million in 2025, and further rose to RMB 150 million by March 31, 2026; at the same time, the inventory turnover days increased from 101 days to 135 days. It is understood that most of Ke Liang Information's core customers are national grid companies, large energy central enterprises, leading power equipment manufacturers, and energy storage companies. The payment process for such customers is generally lengthy, leading to trade receivables and notes receivable increasing from RMB 161 million to RMB 255 million during the reporting period, with the proportion of current revenue increasing from 37.9% to 42.5%, and trade receivables turnover days extending from 118 days to 127 days. In addition, about RMB 33.57 million worth of receivables exceeded the credit period in 2025, further intensifying repayment uncertainty. On the supply chain side, Ke Liang Information also faces risks of dependency. From 2023 to 2025, the company's purchases from the top five suppliers accounted for as high as 63.7%, 60.5%, and 62.1% of total purchases, with one Canadian registered company monopolizing 51.6%, 48.0%, and 53.2% of purchases. The prospectus candidly admits that most of the company's solutions require real-time simulation and HIL testing systems from this supplier. While there is an exclusive distribution agreement in place, it also means that the company's core lifeblood is somewhat subject to the control of a foreign company, posing a significant risk. Energy transition creates structural opportunities, can independent vendors capture market share? Looking at the industry, Ke Liang Information's digital energy solution track is currently facing historic opportunities. With multiple drivers such as rising electricity demand, accelerated electrification at the end-user level, and the transition to clean energy, global and Chinese electricity generation is expected to maintain healthy growth from 2021 to 2030. Frost & Sullivan data shows that the growth rate of clean energy installations is significantly higher than the overall level, becoming the dominant force in new installations. The compound annual growth rate of China's clean energy installed capacity is expected to reach 11.9% from 2026 to 2030, and is expected to reach 4099 GW by 2030. With large-scale integration of wind power, photovoltaics, energy storage, ultra-high-voltage, and other technologies, China's new power system's "three highs" (high proportion of new energy, high proportion of power electronics, and high proportion of ultra-high-voltage DC transmission) characteristics are becoming increasingly prominent. Once a fault occurs in the new grid, it may lead to equipment damage, unit disconnection, or even regional power supply accidents. Therefore, simulation testing, acting as a "virtual arena," has become a rigid requirement for grid safety construction. At the same time, the wave of electrification and intelligence in the high-end equipment field continues to drive demand for system-level verification and full lifecycle management. As equipment volumes increase, intelligence levels rise, and complexity grows, traditional physical testing methods are costly, time-consuming, and often unable to reproduce extreme operating conditions. Digital energy solutions supported by HIL simulations provide a virtual validation environment that can identify potential system risks in the early stages of design, shorten the development cycle, improve system stability, and support technical iterations and quality improvements of high-end equipment. It is understood that as one of the few high-tech enterprises in China with the capability to provide simulation testing services for the entire lifecycle of power systems, Ke Liang Information's portfolio of products and solutions comprises basic tool products (including software and hardware) to comprehensive solutions. Its simulation software SimuNPS supports multi-time scale modeling and simulation, frequency domain modeling, and stability analysis, achieving high-precision, high-efficiency coverage of all scenarios and large-scale engineering verification; the model library software iEnergyModel is easy to operate and supports customization across multiple domains; HIL digital mixed simulation systems can achieve real-time simulation in nanoseconds and interoperability among multiple systems, providing a system-level management framework covering real-time monitoring, risk warning, scheduling optimization, fault diagnosis, and energy efficiency improvement for complex dynamic power systems. However, while there is long-term demand growth in the industry, Ke Liang Information is also facing structural disadvantages in the competitive landscape. According to Frost & Sullivan data, in 2025, in the Chinese digital energy solution market for new power systems (by revenue), Ke Liang Information ranked third, with the top two spots held by State Grid and research institutions under China Southern Power Grid. The top company in 2025 had revenue of approximately RMB 1.6 billion with a market share of 17.2%, while Ke Liang Information had revenue of RMB 0.51 billion with a market share of 5.5%, showing a significant gap. Unlike the "national teams" backed by the grid system, which have natural resource and channel advantages, independent third-party vendors like Ke Liang Information need to invest higher marginal costs in market expansion, policy support, and customer relationship maintenance. Amid the AI wave, Ke Liang Information has put forward the vision of transforming into a "digital energy management solution provider empowered by AI" in its prospectus and plans to seek AI application opportunities through investment and acquisitions. However, objectively speaking, the company's current AI layout remains mostly at the strategic blueprint level and has not made substantive breakthroughs in core capabilities such as deep learning, intelligent algorithms, and large-scale model applications. In conclusion, Ke Liang Information is in a burgeoning golden track, with accumulations of first-mover advantages and benchmark projects, but it also faces multiple hidden concerns in its fundamentals: while its profit performance is occasionally impressive, it is constrained by the strong bargaining power of major customers, and the quality of profitability needs to be solidified; the high dependency on a single overseas supplier in the supply chain poses a risk of being "necked," and in the market competition, it faces strong suppression from the "national teams." This move to the Hong Kong stock exchange will require investors to carefully weigh these variables when evaluating the company.