Chery's dream of going public is finally coming true.
On December 12, there was news thatChery Automobile is considering filing for an initial public offering as early as next year and could seek a valuation of up to 150 billion yuan. At the same time, IDG Capital is considering up to 7 billion yuan (9US$7.6 billion) to acquire Chery Holding Group from existing shareholders.
According to people familiar with the matter, IDG is raising funds from investors for potential transactions. But given Chery Group's relaunch of plans for Chery Automobile's listing in China, any deal will come at a time when Chery Group is seeking to streamline its shareholding structure.
In response to Chery's plan to submit an IPO application next year and related news, a Chery senior executive said, "The company is actively preparing for listing, and the rest of the information is inaccurate." ”
In the past, Chery has been immersed in technological innovation and has little practical experience in capital market operation. ”
Chery Automobile, which owns China's first Acteco engine with independent intellectual property rights and is known as a "technology otaku" by the outside world, is one of the few unlisted automobile OEMs in China. In the past nearly 20 years, Chery has passed by IPOs several times.
According to public information, as early as 2004, Anhui Province promoted the listing process of Chery and carried out shareholding reform for the latter. In 2007, Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Holdings, publicly stated that Chery would launch a listing and financing plan as soon as possible. However, with the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008, the domestic ** fell sharply, and Chery Automobile's operating profit fell to -19.4 billion yuan, the listing was shelved.
In 2009, Chery lost 20% of its equity in a number of enterprises such as financing assets to China with 2.9 billion yuan, which was once regarded by the outside world as a prelude to its listing. It was also this year that as an "independent brother", it launched a multi-brand and multi-channel strategy, aiming to attack the high-end market. However, two years later, Chery officially announced that it would not consider listing for the time being, and its multi-brand strategy was also chicken feathers, and finally ended with the return of a "Chery" brand.
In 2015, Chery's joint venture, Chery Huiyin, failed to hit Hong Kong stocks and A-shares. In 2016, Chery New Energy tried to "backdoor listing" through conch profiles, but it was still unsuccessful, and later turned to the Science and Technology Innovation Board to be listed, but it was still blocked.
After falling 4 times in a row, facing a funding gap, Chery launched a mixed reform and listed some shares of Chery Holdings and Chery Shares, planning to raise 1624.4 billion yuan. Finally, in 2019, Qingdao Wudaokou invested 19.6 billion yuan to acquire 51% of Chery Holdings' shares and 35% of Chery shares58% of the shares, becoming the largest shareholder of the two companies. Although there were unfavorable rumors in Qingdao Wudaokou and the inability to solve the follow-up 10 billion delisting funds, Lixun Precision immediately filled in and became Chery's new strategic investor.
Last year, Chery launched the "Yaoguang 2025" strategy and announced that "the mixed reform has been completely completed". According to the plan,Chery Automobile plans to achieve an A-share IPO by 2025.
In the past 19 years, Chery has indeed taken a lot of detours, both in the listing and in the layout. However, in the past three years, it has returned to the right line, especially after the mixed reform, Chery's performance has continued to break through, and it has the momentum of catching up with and surpassing the independent troika.
According to the data of the company, Chery sold this year in the just-released monthly sales report for NovemberAchieve "eleven consecutive increases", with cumulative sales of 166 by the end of November60,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 478%。Among them, more than 210,000 vehicles were sold in November, once again hitting a record high. At the same time, from the performance point of view, Chery's operating income in the first three quarters of this year was 2130200 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 474%, which has exceeded the whole of last year.
Chery's IPO is intended to expand its financing channels. It has been reported that Chery's capital has mainly relied on bank financing for a long time, and promoting the listing of its potential companies is conducive to Chery's replenishment of capital and ammunition for the new energy transformation, and also adds guarantee for the more fierce market competition in the automotive industry in the future.
At present, Chery Automobile is focusing on the transformation of new energy vehicles. Yin Tongyue declared,In 2024, Chery will definitely enter the national top in the new energy industry ranking, and shouted in a high-profile manner, "Chery, it will not be as polite as this year."
In terms of action, Chery Automobile continues to release its determination to the outside world to fully transform into new energy.
In April this year, Chery disclosed its new energy strategy, planning to invest more than 100 billion yuan in the next five years for the research and development of technologies such as three electrics, intelligent driving, and ecology, so as to realize the transformation from an automobile manufacturing company to a global technology companyIn mid-September, Chery officially announced the naming of the latest new energy product series - Fengyun. Just recently, Huawei and Chery's first pure electric sedan Zhijie S7 was also officially launched, which is another "world" brand selected by Huawei Hongmeng after Wenjie, marking an important breakthrough in the field of intelligence of Chery Automobile, which will compete with Tesla Model 3, ZEEKR 007, ZEEKR 001 and AVATR 12 after its listing.
In addition, Chery will also take the route of "comprehensive new energy" and "global intelligence".New energy products will be launched intensively, and it plans to launch 39 new energy vehicles in the next two years. Among them, in the fourth quarter of this year alone, Chery has released or launched a number of new energy models such as iCar 03, Xingtu Xingyuan ES, Jietu Shanhai L9, and Chery Fengyun A8.
All the past is prologue. At present, Chery is undoubtedly a high-quality investment target for the capital market, which is a car company with a good brand image and a certain scale of production and sales, but is seriously undervalued. For Chery Automobile, the positive sales and performance, as well as the transformation of new energy, have also added a few more chips to the listing.