Changan New Energy is expected to be publicly listed around 2025, and there may be financing before the IPO.
Text | Du Qiaomei
After a year, Chongqing Changan New Energy Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Changan New Energy") B round of financing finally fell off.
On January 24, Changan New Energy announced at its B round financing signing ceremony that it has completed nearly 5 billion yuan of B round financing, introduced dozens of investors including government, finance and industry, and the total amount of financing exceeded the planned financing amount by nearly 2 billion yuan.
It is worth noting that this is also the second time that Changan Automobile has introduced external investment to Changan New Energy since its establishment.
According to the data, Changan Automobile began to enter the field of electric vehicles and new energy vehicles in 2011, and in 2017, it released a "Shangri-La" plan with an investment of 100 billion yuan, and formulated a plan to completely stop selling traditional fuel vehicles in 2025.
In 2018, Changan Automobile packaged all its new energy businesses and established Changan New Energy, in January 2020, Changan New Energy announced the introduction of Nanjing Runke, Changxin Fund, Liangjiang Fund and Southern Industrial Fund for 2.84 billion yuan to complete the mixed reform, and the shareholding ratio of Changan Automobile dropped to 48.9546%, but it is still the largest shareholder.
However, after the B round of financing, Changan New Energy's parent company, Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., Ltd. (000625. SZ, hereinafter referred to as "Changan Automobile") will dilute its shareholding again, from 48.95% to 40.66%, still the largest shareholder.
"With the acceleration of the transformation and upgrading of the automotive industry and the automobile consumer market to intelligent new energy vehicles, market competitors have poured in, market competition has become increasingly fierce, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has continued to increase, which is an important direction for the future automotive market." Under the new pattern, Changan Automobile must accelerate the diversified financing development of Changan New Energy and accelerate the establishment of a market-oriented competition mechanism, and the sustained and efficient development of Changan New Energy will have a positive impact on the company's business development, which is in line with the long-term strategic goal of Changan Passenger Vehicle Transformation to New Energy. Changan Automobile said that through this round of capital increase and share expansion, it is conducive to enhancing Changan's new energy development capabilities and establishing a more market-oriented operating mechanism. At the same time, through this round of financing, the implementation of core employee shareholding is conducive to enhancing the vitality of Changan New Energy development and helping to build an industry-leading leader in digital electric vehicles.
After the completion of this round of financing, Changan New Energy plans to complete the public listing around 2025, of course, it does not rule out continuing to carry out the next round of financing before the IPO.
Replenish development funds and introduce diversified investors
"Capital is one of the indispensable resources for the current competition in the new energy automobile industry, and Changan Automobile supports Changan New Energy to obtain development funds through equity, debt and public listing." Changan Automobile said.
As early as January 19, Changan Automobile issued the "Announcement on related party transactions of joint ventures to increase capital and share increase by public listing", saying that Changan New Energy introduced investors by public listing at the Shanghai United Property Rights Exchange, and dozens of investors have been identified.
Among them, Changan Automobile increased its capital by 1.36 billion yuan, Southern Assets increased by 710 million yuan, Boyu No. 1 increased its capital by 1 billion yuan, Chengyuan Fund increased by 700 million yuan, Wuhu Xinshi Xinhong increased its capital by 500 million yuan, CICC Keyuan Fund increased by 200 million yuan, Southern Industrial Fund increased by 180 million yuan, employee shareholding platform increased by 117 million yuan, Southern Industrial Intelligent Travel Fund increased by 110 million yuan, and Deqing Mixed Reform No. 2 Fund increased by 100 million yuan, a total of 4.977 billion yuan.
After the completion of this capital increase, the shareholding ratio of Changan Automobile was diluted from 48.95% to 40.66%, Southern Assets held 5.47%, Boyu No. 1 of BOCOM held 7.71%, Chengyuan Fund held 5.40%, Wuhu Xinshi Xinhong held 3.85%, Southern Industrial Fund increased from 1.80% to 2.50%, CICC Keyuan Fund held 1.54%, employee shareholding platform held 0.90%, Southern Industrial Intelligent Travel Fund held 0.85%, and Deqing Mixed Reform No. 2 Fund held shares 0.77%。
Chongqing Changxin Equity Investment Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership) (hereinafter referred to as "Changxin Fund") did not participate in the capital increase, and its shareholding ratio was diluted from 17.97% to 11.08%; Nanjing Runke Industrial Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Nanjing Runke") did not participate in the capital increase, and the shareholding ratio was diluted from 17.97% to 11.08%; Chongqing Liangjiang New Area was not involved in the equity investment fund partnership (limited partnership) (hereinafter referred to as "Chengwei Fund") did not participate in the capital increase, and the shareholding ratio was diluted from 13.30%. 8.20%。
"The development of new energy vehicles, from talent to technology, from platform development to model design, from technology research and development to the integration of the industrial chain, costs a lot, not only for Changan New Energy, any new energy automobile enterprise in China, it is logical to accelerate the pace of listing and seek financial support from the secondary market." Some securities industry analysts said.
Changan New Energy is needing a lot of funds to support Changan Automobile's layout and ambition in the new energy vehicle market.
It is worth noting that in this round of financing, Changan New Energy took the lead in introducing an employee shareholding platform.
As the first enterprise under Changan Automobile to realize employee shareholding, the total amount of funds raised by the employee stock ownership plan exceeded 100 million yuan.
"Through employee shareholding, cooperation with the follow-up investment mechanism and other medium- and long-term incentive mechanisms, it not only solves the contradiction between the company's development and the personal development of employees, but also deeply binds the interests of core employees with the interests of the company, stimulates the vitality of employees, stabilizes the talent team, and lays a solid foundation for the future development of Changan New Energy." Deng Chenghao, general manager of Changan New Energy, said at the signing ceremony.
Challenged the 2025 sales target of 700,000
As the core of Changan Automobile's new energy strategy, Changan New Energy is a key step.
With the completion of the B round of financing, Changan New Energy has also planned a new goal, which will be positioned as "the world's first-line mainstream electric vehicle brand" and its sales volume will exceed 700,000 units in 2025, accelerating the construction of one of China's top two new energy vehicle brands.
However, since its establishment, compared with the overall development speed of China's new energy vehicles, the development of Changan New Energy is not prominent. Although Changan New Energy's sales exceeded the 100,000 mark in 2021, the company's losses are expanding.
According to public data, as of December 31, 2020, Changan New Energy had total assets of 5.686 billion yuan, total liabilities of 3.556 billion yuan, net assets of 2.13 billion yuan, operating income of 2.272 billion yuan and net loss of 1.226 billion yuan; as of September 30, 2021, Changan New Energy had total assets of 6.358 billion yuan, total liabilities of 5.818 billion yuan, net assets of 5.396 billion yuan, operating income of 3.454 billion yuan and net loss of 1.595 billion yuan.
In the past ten years of development, compared with BYD, SAIC, GAC and other independent brands, changan automobile's new energy business gap is not small.
As the leader among independent new energy vehicle companies, BYD performed better in 2021 under the two-wheel drive of pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, with annual sales of new energy passenger cars 593745 in 2021, up 231.6% year-on-year, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles reached 81.3%.
SAIC-GM-Wuling is close behind, with outstanding performance in the field of small new energy GSEV (global small electric vehicle platform), with GSEV product sales reaching 452,300 units in 2021, an increase of 160% year-on-year, with cumulative sales of more than 750,000 vehicles, and the penetration rate of Wuling new energy models in the overall sales of the company reached 57.7%.
In addition, in 2021, SAIC's annual sales of new energy vehicles for passenger cars reached 161,000 units, an increase of 107% year-on-year, and the penetration rate exceeded 20%; the annual terminal sales of GAC Ande Safety also reached 123,700 units, an increase of 119% year-on-year, and the new energy penetration rate reached 27% in the overall sales volume of GAC Group.
Among Changan Automobile's total sales of more than 1.2 million vehicles, the penetration rate of Changan new energy models is only 8.3%.
However, Changan Automobile's ambitions in the new energy vehicle market are not small.
In August 2021, Changan Automobile released the "14th Five-Year Plan" strategic goal at its ecological conference, planning to launch more than 20 new intelligent electric vehicles within five years to meet the needs of new people in all scenarios. It is planned that by 2025, Changan brand sales will reach 3 million vehicles, accounting for 35% of new energy; in 2030, to become a world-class brand, sales will reach 4.5 million vehicles, new energy accounted for 60%, overseas sales accounted for 30%.
Judging from the pace of new car launch, it is expected that in the next three years, new species of coupes, SUVs, MPVs and other forms will be developed, and 11 new products are expected to be launched, of which the new pure electric product C385 will be mass-produced and delivered next year.
From the perspective of product positioning, Avita E11 and follow-up products mainly focus on high-end customers to achieve brand upwards; C385 and follow-up EPA1 platform products will focus on mainstream users in the market to achieve scale breakthroughs; Benben products focus on the micro-electric market to achieve industry occupancy breakthroughs.
However, the landing of Changan New Energy's B round of financing did not push up Changan Automobile's stock price. As of the close of trading on January 25, Changan Automobile's stock price fell 3.55% to close at 13.06 yuan per share.