Image source @ Visual China
Author | Wen Yu, editor | Little City Sister
Without the ecstasy of entrepreneurs when they first ascended, looking at the stock price beating on the big screen of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, 67-year-old Jiang Weiping is still calm.
How to evaluate this Chinese "lithium king"?
He rarely attends forum activities, hardly accepts media interviews, but has a low-key and pragmatic background of a doer, and has spent ten years to "rob" a lithium empire for China.
He does not have the "words are not surprising and endless" publicity, but occasionally on appropriate occasions, with a rational and objective attitude to express the vision and views of the industry and the development of the enterprise.
He speaks and behaves peacefully, his mood and anger are not colorful, and his sadness is not on the surface, but he has hills in his heart, mountains and rivers in his eyes, and he will never be soft when he should shoot.
Be bold and decisive when you are small and broad
One day in 2012, Jiang Weiping got up as usual to work, but what awaited him was a sunny thunderbolt: Lockwood wanted to buy Talison.
Lockwood was one of the world's top three lithium salts at the time, and Tellison was the world's largest producer of spodumene, sitting on the world's largest and best-quality spodumene deposit, the Greenbush Lithium Mine.
If these two companies successfully hold hands, then other counterparts in the global lithium industry will tremble for it, and Chinese companies will be heartbroken.
At that time, domestic lithium resources mainly relied on Australian imports, and Tellison was the most important supplier. According to statistics, 90% of the lithium concentrate used by China's ore extraction manufacturers at that time came from Talison. At its peak, Tianqi Lithium alone was able to buy 1/3 of Tellison's lithium concentrate every year.
Once this transaction is completed, Tianqi Lithium will be difficult to increase in price, and the heavy will be directly cut off. After years of groping in the industry, Jiang Weiping naturally sees the stakes very thoroughly, and he must stop this "devil's marriage."
But how easy is it? Just put out the book strength of all parties and look at it.
In 2012, Tianqi Lithium had total assets of less than 1.6 billion, revenue of less than 400 million, and market value of only 3.5 billion. Looking at Lockwood opposite, the total assets are approaching 40 billion, and the annual revenue is about 15 billion.
Even Talison, which was put on the table, has assets of about 2 billion.
The opponent's size is dozens of times that of you, and retreating from difficulties may be the choice of most people, but Jiang Weiping did not admit it.
He took out all his wealth, borrowed a bunch of debts, and killed Australia.
In the end, Jiang Weiping obtained a total of 19.99% of Talison's shares through secondary market transactions and over-the-counter agreement transfers, becoming the second largest shareholder, and rejected the acquisition proposal by a vote at the shareholders' meeting, catching Lockwood by surprise.
Embarrassed and angry, Lockwood is still not dead hearted, intending to increase the price of the remaining shares. Jiang Weiping knew very well that quitting at this time was tantamount to abandoning his previous achievements, although he had no money, he had no way to retreat, and could only go up the scalp. After several rounds of bidding, Lockwood also saw that Jiang Weiping was a bit "strong in the outside", so he took the initiative to quit and sit and wait to see the joke.
But what Lockwood did not expect was that the "Timely Rain" investment company quickly supported at a critical moment and lifted jiang Weiping's siege.
Talison's merger made Tianqi Lithium quickly gain a circle, superimposed lithium cycle upwards, the company's stock price created a miracle of 10 times in 5 years.
The joy of victory did not frame Jiang Weiping, "small wealth is peace" has never been his style, and soon, a bigger "gamble" is brewing in his heart.
Chilean SQM, one of the world's four giants of lithium mines, has the world's highest lithium concentration, the largest reserves, the most mature mining conditions of the Akatama salt lake.
Jiang Weiping has long been eyeing SQM, but has never found a suitable opportunity to intervene. Until 2017, when SQM's major shareholder was forced to sell its shares due to an anti-monopoly investigation, Jiang Weiping struck decisively and stood out among all bidders, taking SQM's 23.77% stake for US$4.066 billion (about 25.9 billion yuan).
After the completion of the transaction, Tianqi Lithium industry sits on the world's largest spodumene and the largest salt lake mine, and a world-class lithium giant is about to come out.
But the pressure is also enormous.
Of the $25.9 billion in acquisition capital, $24 billion came from syndicated loans.
What is the concept of 24 billion?
Tianqi Lithium only spent $3 billion when it acquired Tellison, an eight-fold deal that year.
In 2017, the total assets of Tianqi Lithium were only 17.8 billion yuan, and the net profit was only 2.6 billion. This means that repaying loans by making profits will take nearly a decade, and interest will not be counted.
Jiang Weiping naturally understood these things, but he was still resolute. In order to show sincerity and increase the confidence of lenders, he even pledged a large amount of equity in his name.
Jiang Weiping once again made a desperate bet, but this time, what awaited him was no longer the goddess of luck, but the god of death.
Calm promise when life is hanging on the line
"The flower of success, people only envy her current brilliance!" However, at the beginning, her buds were soaked with the fountain of tears of struggle and sprinkled with the blood rain of sacrifice. ”
Jiang Weiping was bold and daring, but he was not reckless, and naturally knew that relying on tianqi lithium's hematopoietic ability was simply unable to repay the loan. He had already figured out a way out, first completing the transaction from the syndicated loan, and then pushing the company to go public in Hong Kong and withdraw funds to repay the debt.
But man is not as good as heaven.
After 2018, the domestic electric vehicle subsidy declined, the superimposed industry overcapacity, and the price of lithium carbonate took a sharp turn, from the highest 180,000 yuan / ton to 40,000 yuan / ton.
Tianqi Lithium, whose earning power has plummeted, was forced to terminate its plan to raise funds in Hong Kong.
On the other hand, the financial costs of huge loans are suffocating.
Every day when he opened his eyes, Jiang Weiping first had to face millions of interest a day. The data shows that in 2019, Tianqi Lithium spent more than 2 billion yuan on interest payments, resulting in a huge loss of nearly 6 billion yuan for the company that year.
Its own profits have declined, the IPO is stillborn, and the huge debt is at the top. For a time, the alarm about the bankruptcy and delisting of Tianqi Lithium industry was rampant, and even the audit institution once issued a non-standard opinion, believing that the company had a major risk of operational uncertainty.
Jiang Weiping is facing an unprecedented test since his founding.
The scale of the 2020 shareholders' meeting was unprecedented, with more than 120 institutions and many small and medium-sized investors and media gathering together, and the scene was surrounded by water, and even the aisles were crowded with people.
However, compared with the restlessness and uneasiness of public opinion, Jiang Weiping seemed very calm. This is his background, when he soars into the sky, he is not complacent and forgetful, and when he falls to the bottom, he will not be depressed and lose his square inch.
As for the speculation and doubts of the outside world, Jiang Weiping rarely comes forward to clarify or explain, and you will never get from his mouth a rhetoric similar to "work hard for three months, you must pay back the money".
He doesn't say it, but he keeps doing it.
In order to reduce the debt ratio, Jiang Weiping tried almost any possible financing tools and means, convertible bonds, fixed increases, allotments, war investment, leading options... Trial and error, repeated failure.
On November 29, 2020, Tianqi Lithium's $1.884 billion mature debt was forced to roll over due to its inability to repay, and the company entered the countdown to life and death. Subsequently, Jiang Weiping finalized the introduction of IGO as a strategic investor in only eight days, so that Tianqi Lithium, which had already entered the ICU, successfully continued its life.
Time into 2021, with the lithium price into the upward cycle, Tianqi Lithium's profitability has greatly improved, jiang Weiping has planned to restart the Listing of Hong Kong stocks. Today (July 13), Tianqi Lithium was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising 13.4 billion yuan, and there is still a balance after repaying the remaining loans.
Looking at the stock price bouncing on the big screen of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Jiang Weiping is still very calm. Born in 1955, the 67-year-old has already entered the golden age of an entrepreneur, and his mind, experience, and judgment are at their peak. He knows exactly where the future of the business lies and what he should do.
Prepare for the good times
In 2019, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three others, including American scientists John Goodenough, Stanley Whitingham and Japanese scientist Akira Yoshino, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gave a warm reason for the award: they created a rechargeable world.
But as the "father of lithium batteries", Goodinaf then made a less warm statement: "The importance of lithium resources is no less than strategic resources such as oil, and once the bottleneck in the exploitation of lithium resources occurs, it may become the fuse of war like oil."
Goodenough said that in the past two years, the price of lithium has soared 5 times, and the global competition for lithium resources has broken the blood flow, and the situation has become more and more intense.
We suddenly realized that China is a country with a serious shortage of lithium resources. According to USGS data, the South American "lithium triangle" (Bolivia, Argentina, Chile) is the world's three countries with the richest lithium resource reserves, accounting for 58% of the world's lithium resource reserves. In contrast, China's lithium resource reserves account for only 6%.
Source: USGS
We can also finally understand why Jiang Weiping had to take Talison from Lockwood even if he bet all his wealth; Why is it that when he is in debt and his life is hanging on the line, he still firmly says: "I don't regret acquiring SQM, because this is the only opportunity." ”
Sometimes the value of a person is not based on what he can do, but what he will lose if he does not do it.
Without Jiang Weiping's two "gambling" foreign wars, would Chinese enterprises still have such good resources today? Even if you can get it, with the current market, how much price will it cost? If not, will the so-called energy autonomy still remain in slogans and documents?
In the book "From 0 to 1", the author Peter Till once emphasized that in today's world where technology is dramatically changing the world, if you want to succeed, you must study the outcome before everything happens.
China's luck is that when most people are busy making quick money, the industry is still active in a group of "Jiang Weiping" with a sense of endgame, Ren Zhengfei in the field of communications, Wang Dongsheng in the display industry, Sun Piaoyang in the field of medicine, Cao Dewang, the king of glass, Li Zhenguo in the photovoltaic industry...
They have the insight to penetrate an era, and they can think of danger in peace and smell danger in the quiet of the years. They have the courage of "although there are tens of millions of people, I am going to die", but also the self-confidence of "everyone is drunk and I am awake alone", letting the wind blow and the waves, it is better than walking idly.
And that's perhaps the biggest difference between them and the so-called entrepreneurs.