1. ORGANIZATION AND PRINCIPAL ACTIVITIES

Origin Agritech Limited (“Agritech”), incorporated under the laws of the British Virgin Islands, and its subsidiaries and variable interest entities are referred to in this report as "we", "us", "our", or "the Company". We are principally engaged in hybrid crop seed development, production and distribution business.

As of September 30, 2020, the Company’s subsidiaries and variable interest entities included in continuing operations consisted of the following:


	Date of	Place of	Percentage
	Incorporation	Incorporation	of		Principal
Name	or Establishment	or Establishment	Ownership		Activity

Subsidiaries:
State Harvest Holdings Limited(“State Harvest”)	October 6, 2004	British Virgin Islands	100	%	Investment Holding

Beijing Origin State Harvest Biotechnology Limited (“BioTech”)	December 1, 2004	People’s Republic of China (“PRC”)	100	%	Hybrid seed technology development

Variable interest entity:
Beijing Origin Seed Limited (note (i)) (“Beijing Origin”)	December 26, 1997	PRC	Note (i)		Hybrid crop seed development, production and distribution

Subsidiaries held by Beijing Origin:

Xinjiang Originbo Seed Company Limited (note (i)) (“Xinjiang Origin”)	July 13, 2011	PRC	51	%	Hybrid crop seed development, production and distribution

Subsidiaries held by State Harvest:


Shandong Aoruixinong Agricultural Technology Limited (Shandong Aoruixinong)	September 27, 2019	PRC	51	%	Agricultural seed products distribution through e-commune network

Hubei Aoyu Zhongye Limited (Hubei Aoyu)	October 22, 2018	PRC	51	%	Agricultural seed products distribution through e-commune network

Anhui Aoyu Zhongye Limited (Anhui Aoyu)	July 25, 2018	PRC	50	%	Agricultural seed products distribution through e-commune network

Xuzhou Aoyu Zhongye Limited (Xuzhou Aoyu)	September 25, 2018	PRC	51	%	Agricultural seed products distribution through e-commune network

Shandong Aoyu Zhongye Limited (Shandong Aoyu)	November 13, 2018	PRC	51	%	Agricultural seed products distribution through e-commune network

Henan Aoyu Zhongye Limited (note (i)) (“Henan Aoyu”)	July 16, 2018	PRC	51	%	Agricultural seed products distribution through e-commune network

Note (i): Beijing Origin Seed Limited, Xinjiang Originbo Seed Company Limited, and Zhengzhou Branch of Beijing Origin Seed Limited are collectively referred to as “Beijing Origin”.

Reorganization of State Harvest prior to the share exchange transaction with Chardan China Acquisition Corp. (“Chardan”)

On December 1, 2004, State Harvest established BioTech, a wholly-owned foreign enterprise (“WOFE”) under the laws of the PRC with an operating period of 20 years.

Under PRC law, foreign entities are not currently permitted to own more than 49% of a seed production company. In order to address those restrictions, State Harvest conducts substantially all of its business through contractual agreements with its variable interest entity (“VIE”), Beijing Origin. These agreements are summarized in the following paragraphs.

Stock Consignment Agreements

Under Chinese law, foreign ownership of businesses engaged in the breeding of new varieties, development, production, marketing, distribution and sale of hybrid food crop seeds is limited to 49% pursuant to the Regulation on the Approval and Registration of Foreign Investment Enterprises in Agricultural Seed Industry and The Foreign Investment Industrial Guidance Catalogue. State Harvest, as a non-Chinese corporation, may not directly own more than 49% of any of the PRC Operating Companies. However, Chinese law does not forbid the owner of stock to consign rights associated with the stock, as long as the owner does not transfer title to the stock. To gain control over the PRC Operating Companies, State Harvest entered into a series of stock consignment agreements with shareholders of those companies.

State Harvest has been assigned 97.96% voting rights by the shareholders of Beijing Origin through a consignment agreement which includes the following terms: (1) The shares of Beijing Origin cannot be transferred without the approval of State Harvest; (2) State Harvest has the right to appoint all directors and senior management personnel of Beijing Origin and (3) The shareholder rights including voting rights require the transfer of the shares of Beijing Origin to State Harvest or any party designated by State Harvest within three years upon the removal of the PRC legal restriction.

Technical Service Agreements

Beijing Origin entered into Technical Service Agreements with BioTech dated December 25, 2004. Under these agreements, BioTech shall provide, with its own technical research resource and team, technical services for the production and distribution of agricultural seeds during the period of the agreements. In return, Beijing Origin is required to pay BioTech a service fee calculated according to the weight of corn, rice and cotton seeds sold by the Beijing Origin.

Through the contractual agreements described above, State Harvest is deemed the sole beneficiary of Beijing Origin resulting in Beijing Origin being deemed a subsidiary of State Harvest under the requirements of Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) Accounting Standard Codification (“ASC”) 810‑10‑05. The agreements described above provided for effective control of Beijing Origin to be transferred to State Harvest at December 25, 2004. Neither State Harvest nor BioTech had any operating activity prior to entering into the consignment agreements with Beijing Origin. In substance, State Harvest has substantially all the same shareholders of Beijing Origin. This transaction has been accounted for on a basis similar to reorganization between entities under common control. Accordingly, State Harvest’s consolidated financial statements are prepared by including the consolidated financial statements of Beijing Origin through December 24, 2004, and subsequently the Company’s consolidated financial statements include the financial statements of State Harvest, its majority owned subsidiary and Beijing Origin through the date of the Share Exchange Transaction.

Risks in relation to the VIE structure

Two of our PRC operating subsidiaries are controlled subsidiaries through stock consignment agreements rather than by direct ownership of shares, the terms of which may have to be enforced, which would require us to incur extra costs, create uncertainty as to ownership of the operating businesses involved and risk the possible loss of rights. There is the risk, however, that a consigning shareholder will not fulfill its obligations under the stock consignment agreement. In that event, we may need to resort to the PRC courts to have our rights under the applicable agreement enforced. Such enforcement will cause us to incur legal expenses. In addition, while a case is pending there will be uncertainty regarding our rights as to the three PRC operating subsidiaries involved. In addition, a PRC court may decide not to enforce the agreements in whole or in part. To the extent these agreements are neither observed nor enforced as intended, the PRC operating subsidiaries will not be controlled by us as intended, which will affect our enterprise value and restrict our ability to obtain the income and other rights of ownership associated with the consigned stock. It may also prevent the consolidation of our financial statements with the PRC operating subsidiaries, which would reduce the reported earnings of the consolidated companies. The uncertainty of ownership may also adversely affect the market value of our ordinary shares.

Whether or not a stock consignment agreement is terminated depends on the consensus of our Board and the consignees. Any such termination could result in a possible loss of certain rights or assets held by us without receiving fair value in return. The stock consignment agreements relating to our control of the stock of our PRC operating subsidiaries may be terminated after three years upon mutual agreement between us and the consignees. Holding this amount of stock will allow these officers to control or greatly influence the selection of directors and matters submitted to a vote of our shareholders, including voting to terminate the stock consignment agreements.

There are corporate protections in place designed to protect our interests, such as an independent Board of Directors, an audit committee comprised of independent directors that must approve insider transactions, a code of conduct requiring fair dealing with the Company, and the British Virgin Islands statutory provision that a disposition of more than 50% of the assets of a company must be approved by a majority of the shareholders. Moreover, if consigned stock is transferred to us as provided in the stock consignment agreements when the restrictions under PRC law are lifted, that stock will no longer be subject to the stock consignment agreements, and the termination of the stock consignment agreements would then have no effect on the ownership of that stock. However, if the stock consignment agreements are terminated, then we would lose our rights with respect to the consigned stock and the profits from the issuing corporation. Such a loss would impair the value of the Company and would reduce our ability to generate revenues.

The Company has aggregated the financial information of Beijing Origin and its subsidiaries in the table below. The aggregated carrying amount of assets and liabilities of Beijing Origin and its subsidiaries after elimination of intercompany transactions and balances consolidated in the Company’s consolidated balance sheets as of September 30, 2019 and 2020 are as follows:

Risks in relation to the VIE structure (Beijing Origin Consolidated Balance Sheet)


	September 30,
	2019	2020	2020
	RMB	RMB	US$
ASSETS
Current Assets
Cash and cash equivalents	322	206	30
Due from related party	33,290	—	—
Accounts receivable	784	1,099	161
Advances to suppliers	83	377	55
Inventories	23,199	10,118	1,486
Other current assets	2,140	1,279	188
Total current assets	59,818	13,079	1,920
Land use rights, net	12,913	9,785	1,437
Plant and equipment, net	149,175	115,338	16,936
Equity investments	16,347	—	—
Acquired intangible assets, net	113	87	13
Other assets	6,356	5,749	844
Total assets	244,722	144,038	21,150
LIABILITIES
Current liabilities
Current portion of long-term borrowings	78,611	—	—
Accounts payable	9,723	9,533	1,400
Due to growers	7,260	6,673	980
Due to related parties	33,859	20,217	2,969
Advances from customers	42,679	52,535	7,714
Other payables and accrued expenses	63,157	61,019	8,960
Total current liabilities	235,289	149,977	22,023
Long-term borrowings	—	137,660	20,214
Other long-term liability	28,785	23,074	3,388
Total liabilities	264,074	310,711	45,625

As of September 30, 2019 and 2020, consolidated assets of RMB244,722 and RMB139,049, respectively, are collateral for the VIE’s obligations and may not be used to settle the liabilities of the Parent Company.