Every reporter Fan Qianqian Every editor Chen Junjie
From "LABUBU" to Xingren, Pop Mart has set off a hot market for trendy toys in China and even around the world. In the capital market, Pop Mart's stock price has also been rising all the way.
The "Daily Economic News" reporter noticed that Lezi Tiancheng, the parent company of another trendy toy brand 52toys, submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in May 2025. Now, another trendy toy company has also launched a Hong Kong stock IPO (initial public offering) prelude.
In late September, TOP TOY submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This is a young company. It has been less than five years since its establishment to achieve profitability, to going to sea, and now to the sprint to go public. Behind this is inseparable from the support of one of its controlling shareholders, Chuangyou Group. It is not only a blood transfusion of real money, but also a dealer customer that supports half of the TOP TOY revenue.
According to TOP TOY's description in the prospectus, it is the fastest growing fashion toy collection brand in China, and it is also the Chinese fashion toy brand with the shortest annual GMV (total merchandise transaction volume) exceeding the 1 billion yuan mark. But it should also be noted that, on the one hand, TOP TOY's debt repayment pressure is not small. Until the first half of 2025, current assets barely cover current liabilities; On the other hand, there is still a long way to go to build TOP TOY's own IP (intellectual property rights). Before submitting the prospectus, TOP TOY was also "making up lessons".
Related transactions are expected to continue to decline
There are several key nodes in the development process of TOP TOY. In 2020, TOP TOY opened its first store, marking the launch of the brand; In 2023, TOP TOY turned losses into profits; In 2024, TOP TOY will begin to expand overseas markets; In 2025, TOP TOY will submit a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
In less than 5 years, TOP TOY has completed a series of business expansions that other companies may take more than 10 years or even decades to complete. This is inseparable from the "window" of the trendy toy industry. Even compared with other companies in the same industry, the development speed of TOP TOY is amazing.
As of June 2025, TOP TOY has 293 stores around the world, with a revenue scale of 1.9 billion yuan and a net profit of 294 million yuan in 2024, with growth rates of 30.6% and 38.2% respectively. In the first half of 2025, TOP TOY's revenue growth rate is still accelerating, reaching 58.5%. According to data from Frost & Sullivan, in terms of retail sales in 2024, TOP TOY ranks third among trendy toy retailers in China's trendy toy industry, and three of the top five companies were established far earlier than 2020.
To achieve such results, we have to mention the help of MingChuangpin Group, one of the controlling shareholders of TOP TOY. The reporter of "Daily Economic News" combed and found that Mingchuang Premium Products Group has invested a lot of resources in TOP TOY.
According to the bidding book, in recent years, TOP TOY’s loans and loans are either from TOP TOY’s dealer customers, or from entities controlled jointly by the TOP TOY Group. As of the date of the listing, TOP TOY’s unpaid loans to the TOP TOY Group are approximately $3.9 billion; three of them are increased performance. TOP TOY’s loans and loans are either from TOP TOY’s dealer customers, contributing approximately 50% of the turnover in 2023 and 2024, and the turnover in the first half of 2025 is approximately 45%. That is to say, TOP TOY’s unpaid loans to the TOP TOY Group are approximately $5 million per revenue; a four-member asset is guaranteed to be opened,
Backed by big trees, TOP TOY is growing rapidly. The other side of the coin is that when TOP TOY is about to become an independently listed company, the independence of its business will also receive more attention from regulatory authorities and the market. In the prospectus, TOP TOY also used a lot of space to explain this point, and also emphasized that in the next three years, related transactions with MINISO Group are expected to continue to decline, and it is expected that the maximum transaction amount covered by the upper limit by 2028 will not exceed 40% of the corresponding annual total revenue.
The company has short-term debt repayment pressure
In March 2025, TOP TOY opened its first global flagship store in Shanghai Nanjing Road. On the National Day holiday, the Daily Economic News reporter visited the store, the store has three floors, covering blind boxes, wood, wool and other categories, the traffic is not small. On this road, there is also the global number one store of the renowned Kreativity Group and the global flagship store of Bubble Mat, the journalist's visit on the day is also crowded and even needs to ran into the store.
It is undeniable that, as a branch of the emotional economy, trendy games are being sought after by more and more people, including capital naturally. Previously, Ye Guofu, chairman of MINISO Group, said at the second quarter performance briefing: "Yesterday (August 20) we saw that Pop Mart's performance was very good, and we were also very happy. This shows that on the one hand, consumers pay the bill and are optimistic about Chaowan, on the other hand, the capital market pays the bill. Chaowan market has just risen in China, and the market is developing vigorously."
The reporter noted that until the end of June 2025, there were no external shareholders in the TOP TOY shareholder structure. In July, TOP TOY completed the A round of financing, with investors including Daimler Inc., with a funding amount of $59.4 million, with a backset valuation of about $2.2 billion. It is worth mentioning that Daimler China District Executive Manager Daimler also became the non-executive director of TOP TOY in July.
According to the prospectus, TOP TOY has received relevant funds from Series A financing, which will also help the company relieve its financial pressure. As of the end of 2024, TOP TOY's current assets cannot cover current liabilities, and there is short-term debt repayment pressure. The current ratio will not exceed 1 until the end of the first half of 2025. If we look at it separately, the decrease in liquidity pressure is due to the postponement of the repayment date of the loan of 310 million yuan and the conversion of current liabilities to non-current liabilities, but the overall asset-liability ratio is still high.
TOP TOY also stated in the bid: “We believe that our cash and cash equivalents and expected cash flows from operating income will be sufficient to meet our current and expected needs for general company use for at least 12 months to come.”
In addition, the challenge faced by TOP TOY is the incubation of its own IP. Although it emphasizes in its bidding book that its own research product revenue accounts for about 50% in recent years, but more of them are secondary products for licensing IP, and the real own IP product revenue in the first half of 2024 and 2025 is 6.8 million yuan and 6.1 million yuan respectively, accounting for less than 1% of the total revenue of the period.
In August 2025, TOP TOY acquired several designers’ IPs (such as Ninimo), and the company’s own IPs increased from eight as of the end of June to 17 as of September 19.This is just the beginning, and operations have a long way to go to build explosive IPs like the “LABUBU” “Starman”.
What are the plans for future self-owned IP operations? On October 15, a reporter from "Daily Economic News" sent an interview outline to TOP TOY on IPO-related issues, but no reply was received as of press time.