As a former "independent brother", the IPO has always been a regret that Chery has not been able to complete. However, many of the news that has come out recently seems to have the possibility of Chery's regret.
On December 12, a brokerage said that IDG Capital is considering acquiring part of Chery Holding Group from existing shareholders for 7 billion yuan. According to other sources in the financial industry, Chery Automobile is considering submitting an IPO application as early as next year and seeking a valuation of up to 150 billion yuan.
The next day, Chery's senior management responded, "The company is actively preparing for listing, and the rest of the information is inaccurate." ”
Chery Automobile is one of the few mainstream automakers in China that has not yet been listed. However, the reason for not being listed is not reluctance, but the constraints of various factors in the past 20 years.
Back in 2004, Yin Tongyue had just taken over as chairman of Chery Automobile and had the idea of listing the company, but because the equity relationship between Chery Automobile and SAIC had not yet been clarified, the IPO project could not be carried out normally.
In 2007, Yin Tongyue publicly stated that Chery would launch a listing and financing plan as soon as possible, but the arrival of the financial crisis forced Chery's listing process to be interrupted.
In 2008, Chery completed the shareholding system reform and launched a multi-brand and brand upward plan. However, with the failure of the two major brands of Riich and Weilin, the listing has once again disappeared.
From 2015 to 2016, Chery Huiyin failed to hit Hong Kong stocks and A-shares, and Chery New Energy's "backdoor listing" was blocked. At this time, Chery, which has fallen on the IPO four times in a row, is facing a huge funding gap.
In order to save its life, Chery launched a mixed-ownership reform strategy and listed some shares of Chery Holdings and Chery Automobile. In 2019, Qingdao Wudaokou ended with 758.6 billion yuan to subscribe to Chery Group 3099% equity to 686.3 billion yuan to subscribe to Chery Automobile 1852% equity. After the completion of the transaction, Qingdao Wudaokou became the largest shareholder of the two companies.
In 2022, "Brother Fruit Chain" Luxshare Co., Ltd. joined the mixed reform team and obtained Chery Group 1988% of the shares, Chery Automobile 787% equity and Chery New Energy 624% equity.
After 18 years of preparation, the time is gradually ripe for Chery's IPO. In 2022, Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery, set a flag at the Yaoguang strategy conference: Chery Automobile will complete its IPO by 2025.
Therefore, the news of Chery's listing this time is not groundless.
Judging from the market situation in recent years, Chery's performance is indeed remarkable. In 2022, Chery will once again return to the camp of annual sales of one million vehicles, and there is a trend of the "independent brother" regaining its glory.
In the first 11 months of this year, Chery's cumulative sales have reached 166560,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 478%。Chery's three sub-brands, Chery, Jietu and Xingtu, have doubled their sales figures, which together have helped Chery's overall sales increase.
In addition, exports are also the main driving force for Chery's rapid growth in sales. According to the data, in 2022, Chery Automobile exported more than 450,000 units, accounting for 36% of the total sales6%。In the first 10 months of this year, Chery Automobile's exports doubled to 74The 20,000 units ranked second in the domestic market, second only to SAIC's 8610,000 units.
Unlike other car companies, Chery's sales growth is dominated by fuel vehicles, while the current popular new energy vehicles are mediocre. As we all know, Chery has been relying on micro-small electric vehicles to gain a foothold in the market, but as the popularity of micro-electric vehicles cools down, the sales of Chery's main sales of QQ ice cream and other models have also plummeted, and there has been no sales results for many months.
But new energy vehicles are the future of the auto market. Even if Chery relies on fuel vehicles to achieve sales growth, it cannot ignore the development of new energy vehicles.
From this point of view, Chery Automobile's active preparations for listing are also in response to market demand. At present, the competition in the new energy vehicle market is becoming increasingly fierce, and a large amount of capital investment is required to promote the development of the company, and raising funds through listing has become the best choice.
Compared with other listed car companies, Chery's funds mainly rely on bank financing, and the channels for raising funds are very limited, which has also become a key factor restricting the company's development.
Promoting the listing of its potential companies will help Chery replenish capital and ammunition for the new energy transformation, and also add guarantee for the more fierce market competition in the automotive industry in the future.
Although there is no more information about Chery's impact on the IPO**, judging from the current operating conditions and sales performance, the success rate of Chery's listing is still much greater than before.