"Chip bull stocks" delisted! It was once known as "benchmarking NVIDIA", and the stock price fell from 299 yuan to 6.9 yuan

National Business Daily

2024-06-29 13:27The official account of National Business Daily

The full text is 2742 words, and it takes about 8 minutes to read, so help me highlight the key points

Highlight the point

01 Zuojiang Technology, a chip bull stock that was once known as "benchmarking NVIDIA", was investigated by the China Securities Regulatory Commission for financial fraud, and finally announced its delisting.

02 The stock price fell from 299 yuan to 6.9 yuan, and tens of thousands of shareholders chased the quilt, with a total market value of 708 million yuan as of the last trading day before the suspension.

On November 24, 032023, the China Securities Regulatory Commission filed an investigation into Zuojiang Technology, a delisting risk company, and reported on January 30 this year that its financial information was seriously untrue.

04 Zhao Jingguo, a lawyer at Shanghai Xinben Law Firm, preliminarily judged that any injured investor who bought *ST Zuojiang shares before December 4, 2023 and held a position may be able to claim compensation from the company.

Technical support is provided by Tencent Hybrid Model

The former chip bull stock was officially announced to be delisted!

On the evening of June 28, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange announced the termination of the listing of *ST Zuojiang (300799, hereinafter referred to as Zuojiang Technology). "The most expensive ST stock in history", known as "benchmarking NVIDIA", Zuojiang Technology, finally left the market.

It is reported that Zuojiang Technology landed on the GEM in October 2019. As a national high-tech enterprise, it has been continuously disclosing the research and development of "programmable network data processing chips" since 2021, as a scarce DPU (data processor) concept stock, even if the performance declines seriously, the stock is wearing a star and a hat, and the stock price has been bullish, once rising to 299.8 yuan in July last year.

However, on November 24, 2023, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced that it had opened an investigation into Zuojiang Technology, a delisting risk company. On January 30 this year, the China Securities Regulatory Commission notified that the financial information disclosed by Zuojiang Technology in 2023 was seriously untrue and suspected of major financial fraud. As of the last trading day before its suspension, Zuojiang Technology's share price was only 6.94 yuan, with a total market value of 708 million yuan and 12,000 shareholders. Shares are down 97% from their peak in July last year.

"Chip bull stocks" delisted! It was once known as "benchmarking NVIDIA", and the stock price fell from 299 yuan to 6.9 yuan

It is worth mentioning that the number of shareholders of Zuojiang Technology increased by more than 13,000 in the fourth quarter of last year, and this is when the share price of *ST Zuojiang turned from a high level to a decline. After entering 2024, these new shareholders will not be able to escape the end of being deeply trapped, no matter when they exit.

According to the Public Securities News, Zhao Jingguo, a lawyer at Shanghai Xinben Law Firm, preliminarily judged based on the available public information that any injured investor who bought *ST Zuojiang shares before December 4, 2023 and held a position, regardless of whether they sold the stock on or after December 4, 2023, may be able to claim compensation from the company.

The "most expensive ST stock in history" was terminated from listing

Involved in major financial fraud was investigated by the Securities Regulatory Commission

On the evening of June 28, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange issued an announcement to decide that *ST Zuojiang (300799, hereinafter referred to as Zuojiang Technology) would terminate its listing and enter the delisting period on July 8.

Specifically, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange announced that *ST Zuojiang's audited net profit before and after deducting non-recurring gains and losses in 2022 is negative and the operating income is less than 100 million yuan, and the company's stock trading will be subject to a delisting risk warning from May 4, 2023.

On April 29 this year, the company disclosed that the first annual financial and accounting report after the implementation of the delisting risk warning showed that the audited net profit before and after deducting non-recurring gains and losses in 2023 was -223 million yuan, and the operating income after deducting business income unrelated to the main business and income without commercial substance was 52.1727 million yuan, and the company's 2023 financial and accounting report was issued an audit report that could not express an opinion. The company has terminated the listing of the shares in accordance with the relevant regulations.

On the evening of the 28th, Zuojiang Technology announced that the company's shares entered the delisting period for trading. The start date of the delisting consolidation period is July 8, and the last trading day is expected to be July 26. The company's shares will be delisted on the next trading day after the expiration of the delisting period, and the listing of the shares will be terminated.

Last year, the A-share market gave birth to the myth of "the most expensive ST stock in history", and the share price of Zuojiang Technology rose from less than 100 yuan to a maximum of 299.8 yuan. Because Zuojiang Technology has caught up with the concept of DPU (note: data-centric dedicated processor) chips. In the chip industry, DPU is considered to be the new "third main chip", and the main DPU manufacturer is an international giant represented by NVIDIA. Since 2021, Zuojiang Technology has continuously disclosed the research and development of "programmable network data processing chips". Zuojiang Technology cut into DPU chips, which provided a huge imagination for the stock price.

However, on November 24, 2023, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced an investigation against Zuojiang Technology. On January 30, 2024, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued a notice showing that it has been preliminarily ascertained that the financial information disclosed by Zuojiang Technology in 2023 is seriously untrue and suspected of major financial fraud. The case is currently under investigation, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission said that it will ascertain the facts of the violation as soon as possible and deal with it seriously in accordance with the law.

Judging from the statement of the CSRC, it mainly involves serious inaccuracies in the financial information disclosed by the company in 2023. Judging from the information disclosed by Zuojiang Technology in 2023, the most important thing is the performance of the 51 million yuan network card contract, and whether the revenue is recognized or not is very important to its shell. The network card of the "51 million yuan contract" is 20,000 sets of network adaptation equipment purchased by Qingyang Zhongyuan Space-Time Cloud Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhongyuan Space-time) from Zuojiang Shaoguan through CIFI Technology.

Prior to this, Zuojiang Technology reported to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange the procurement contract signed between CIFI Technology and Zuojiang Shaoguan, and made it clear that CIFI Technology purchased 20,000 sets of 2*25G network cards from Zuojiang Shaoguan for 51 million yuan. In the reply to the inquiry letter of Zuojiang Technology's third quarterly report in December 2023, the company said that it had shipped 20,000 sets of network cards to CIFI Technology in accordance with the "Server Network Card Procurement Contract", and CIFI Technology had signed for the receipt, but the revenue had not yet been recognized.

The development of chips is known as "benchmarking NVIDIA"

The project plot with an investment of more than 1 billion yuan is overgrown with weeds

Since 2023, GPUs have "taken off" with artificial intelligence, and A-shares once "rose when they heard AI", so many investors are optimistic about Zuojiang Technology. However, the DPU industry in which Zuojiang Technology participated and the "third main chip" in the mouth of industry insiders is still a new word compared with CPU and GPU, and there is also a big gap in application scenarios. Zhang Binlei, senior analyst of Xinmou Research, further introduced the concept of DPU: due to the increasing data transmission rate, the traditional CPU is under greater pressure when processing data, images and other content, and the efficiency is also affected, and the GPU that can offload part of the burden of the CPU came into being. In the context of the gradual expansion of the market's demand for computing power, DPUs that offload more tasks to the CPU have begun to attract attention.

Since 2021, Zuojiang Technology has continuously disclosed the relevant R&D information of "programmable network data processing chips". As the main force in the research and development of DPU of Zuojiang Technology, Chengdu Beizhong Netcore Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Beizhong Netcore), a subsidiary of Zuojiang Technology, will also usher in new investors in 2023. On February 7, 2023, Zuojiang Technology announced that it agreed to introduce new investors such as Hainan Quantum Yongchang Venture Capital Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership) and Chengdu Dingxing Quantum Investment Management Co., Ltd. through capital increase and share expansion. Three months later, Qingdao Dingliang Digital Core Private Equity Investment Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership) and Qingdao Xinqi Wanlian Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) also became investors in Beizhong Netcore.

With the help of capital, DPU was created by Zuojiang Technology. According to the official WeChat message of Zuojiang Technology, in November 2022, the Mako Shark NE6000 series network data processing chip (DPU) was successfully developed, NE6000 is the first independent controllable chip in China that can provide 25G and 100G interface capabilities, and it is also the first network data processing chip with 200Gbps data plane programmability in China. At the same time, Zuojiang Technology also said in its reply to the inquiry letter of the 2022 annual report that the difference between NE6000 and similar foreign products is mainly reflected in the different chip processes, and the NE6000 is developed to benchmark the previous generation Bluefield2 DPU launched by NVIDIA in 2020.

Zuojiang Technology said in the annual report that the high-speed network card based on the programmable network data processing chip has carried out ecological adaptation with CPU manufacturers, operating system manufacturers and server manufacturers, and has passed a number of compatibility certifications, and obtained the material code of some major domestic server manufacturers, marking that the high-speed network card products supported by the company's programmable network data processing chip as the underlying support have reached a new level in industry compatibility and adaptation. At the same time, based on the programmable network data processing chip, a variety of high-speed network equipment has been developed for customers, and a number of central enterprises have carried out the development of network security platforms based on NE6000 chips, some of which have been developed, and the project implementation has been implemented and accepted.

Holding a few "firsts" and claiming to benchmark Nvidia-related products, Zuojiang Technology's share price has been "soaring", rising to nearly 300 yuan per share. However, it has been tape-out for nearly a year, and as of the end of the third quarter of 2023, except for a transaction that is not yet known whether it can be confirmed in 2023, Zuojiang Technology's DPU chip sales revenue has nothing else.

In December 2023, a reporter from "Daily Economic News" found that the legal representative of the second largest shareholder of Zuojiang Technology Holding Subsidiary has the same name as the customer shareholder, and there is a network of intertwined business relationships behind it. This complex web of business relationships points to the Shaoguan Computing Industry Association, its main member, Guangdong Baohua Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd., and the large local construction company, Shaoguan Residential Construction Engineering Co., Ltd.

The reporter of "Daily Economic News" rushed to the "51 million yuan contract" network card terminal project - Zhongyuan Spatio-temporal Big Data Cloud Center, and found that the project plot with an investment of more than one billion yuan in the announcement was overgrown with weeds, and there was no sign of starting.

The reporter visited Zuojiang Technology's chip sales customers in Beijing and found that some of their public mailing addresses have been settled by other companies, and some are hidden in residential areas and no one responds; People who answered the public contact number said he was no longer with the company.

(This article does not constitute investment advice, and you do so at your own risk)

Editor|Duan Lian Du Hengfeng

Proofreading|Sun Zhicheng

Cover image: Visual China (not related to the picture or text)

The daily economic news is synthesized from Zuojiang Science and Technology Announcement, Meijing.com, Securities Times, Public Securities News, public information, etc

National Business Daily

View original image 164K