2018.04.18 Wu Liangliang 浏览次数:
In Anhui Province, the PE fund has played an increasingly important role in raising the proportion of direct financing and boosting the healthy development of the multi-level capital market, thus becoming an important force to support the real economy. Attracted by Anhui’s sound industrial development environment, a domestic PE firm CoStone Capital comes to invest in Anhui. By connecting “capital and industrial resources”, it continuously enlarges the amount and scale of the investments to cultivate and support start-up companies. And that continues to yield results.
In Anhui Province, the PE fund has played an increasingly important role in raising the proportion of direct financing and boosting the healthy development of the multi-level capital market, thus becoming an important force to support the real economy. Attracted by Anhui’s sound industrial development environment, a domestic PE firm CoStone Capital comes to invest in Anhui. By connecting “capital and industrial resources”, it continuously enlarges the amount and scale of the investments to cultivate and support start-up companies. And that continues to yield results.
EFORT managed to acquire W.F.C. Group
In late March, W.F.C Group, a subsidiary of EFORT Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. (688165.SH), successfully won the bid for welding production line projects of General Motors (GM.N) and Volkswagen (VOWG). The contract is worth nearly 70 million euros, under which more than 400 robots are expected to be integrated. The bid can further demonstrate Anhui enterprises’ strength to directly participate in the international competition in the high-end robot system integration market.
W.F.C Group, an Italian automotive equipment and robot system integrator, was once well-known in Europe. On September 28, 2017, Italian time, EFORT acquired W.F.C Group. That was EFORT’s fourth overseas M&A, to which PE firms have made a great contribution.
In the middle of last year, some strategic institutional investors led by CoStone Capital, a famous domestic PE firm, decided to jointly increase the capital of EFORT and carried out close cooperation with it to further improve the distribution of industrial chain, domestic and overseas market expansion, and capital operation. Acquisition of W.F.C Group was a significant step afterward. "The scale of this overseas M&A target is beyond EFORT 's capabilities. And completion of that M&A through PE has promoted corporate influence and competitiveness of EFORT to a new level," said Dr. You Wei, Executive Director and Chief Engineer of EFORT.
CoStone Capital founded Pharmplus in Ma’anshan City, Anhui Province in 2016
In 2016, CoStone Capital founded Pharmplus Investment Management Co., Ltd. in Ma’anshan City, Anhui Province, and now Pharmplus has come to the forefront of the retail pharmacy field. Pharmplus has more than 1,500 pharmacies, generating a turnover of 4 billion RMB. The two-year-old company is committing itself to build a modern pharmacy service system that integrates pharmacy entities, pharmacy services, B2C, and PBM, in an attempt to build a new pharmacy business form of "product + service".
On November 19, 2015, CoStone Capital was chosen to be the manager of the Anhui Industrial Upgrading Fund of 10 billion RMB. Since then, CoStone Capital has been vigorously cultivating and supporting emerging industries in Anhui, taking good advantage of capital and industrial resources. Nowadays, it has nearly 20 billion RMB fund under management here, and its accumulated tax payment reaches nearly 100 million RMB. It is estimated that the total tax payment of CoStone in Anhui from 2018 to 2019 will exceed 200 million RMB. So far, it has invested in 8 major portfolios here, with a total investment of nearly 7 billion RMB, giving rise to a sharp increase in corporate incomes and industry status of certain companies after the investment.
"It has always been our goal to support Anhui enterprises and serve the real economy." Zhang Wei, Chairman of CoStone Capital, believes that Anhui has been in a critical period of industrial upgrading. It can be complementary with European and American countries, which have greater technological advantages in the advanced manufacturing industry but with saturated markets. "We will integrate domestic and foreign industrial resources for the benefit of Anhui enterprises through equity investment, mergers and restructuring, cross-border M&A, and private placement, in order to improve the core competitiveness of relevant companies and industries."
Zhang Wei concludes the four models CoStone Capital has developed to serve Anhui companies as follow:
Firstly, the new method of attracting FDI – under the guidance of global perspective and strategic thinking, CoStone encourages the most outstanding domestic companies to settle in Anhui with the help of the capital market.
Secondly, CoStone makes full use of such financial tools and financial means as private placement and M&A to support the transformation and upgrading of the existing listed companies in Anhui into strategic emerging industries.
Thirdly, the 2.0 version of mixed ownership reform working along with asset integration and restructuring – which means vertical or horizontal M&A of competitive business portfolios or high-quality assets, and careful distribution of denotative and connotative expansion, to improve the efficiency of Anhui's traditional competitive industries.
Fourthly, CoStone combines the shutdown of outdated production capacity with the “vacating the cage for birds” strategy, that is, introducing strategic emerging industries to replace old growth drivers in the listed companies’ resources with new ones.
In May last year, the Anhui government issued documents concerning the promotion of the concentrated development of PE funds. A variety of domestic and foreign PE firms were encouraged to settle or be established there. As a successful example of investors representative for its investment operation in Anhui, CoStone Capital was introduced in detail by the official media Anhui Daily on its investment strategies.
This is part of the article on Anhui Daily. For the full transcript of the original interview, please refer to http://stonevc.com/news_view.aspx?Fid=t2:5:2&Id=689&TypeId=5&IsActiveTarget=True
Rewritten by Xu Xinru, Edited by Du Zhixin, Li Yunzhen
去年我写了三篇文章：《我们究竟需要什么样的资本市场》、《什么是真正的“做多中国”》和《汽车界下一个退场的会是谁？》，引发了一些反响。
三篇文章看似三个主题，其实还是一个主题——什么是真正的“做多中国”。
我的核心观点很简单，也是我二十多年来始终强调的：
企业家在经济与产业发展中具有不可替代的作用。因此，支持民营企业、培育和保护企业家精神，才是推动发展与进步的核心要义。
民营企业家的信心何在？来自对未来的良好预期，包括对政策、法律、营商环境、产权以及安全等各个方面的预期，其底层逻辑是法治社会和市场决定论。
如何激励企业家创新创业？核心在于创造巨大的财富效应。一个包容的、有强大财富效应的资本市场，对保护企业家精神、激励创新创业、推动科技发展具有至关重要的作用。注册制的核心是调动全社会的创业和投资热情，进而改变全社会的融资结构。
为何去年我又开始密集地提及这些问题？因为我们确乎已经处于世界大变局的关键时点了，一切都在加速演进。
在政治上，国际格局深度调整，地缘政治博弈升级，新旧力量激烈竞逐。如何续写和平与发展、稳定与繁荣的篇章，深刻地考验着各国的智慧与担当。
在科技上，技术革命方兴未艾，前沿科技不断突破，人工智能风起云涌。第四次工业革命或将以前所未有的力度推动生产力的大发展，从而深刻地改变国家前途与人类命运。
在产业上，新兴产业不断解码，中国智造强势出海，市场竞争如火如荼。以新能源汽车产业代表的新兴产业，中国正在席卷全球，行业的淘汰赛将加速。在汽车机器人时代，即人工智能与芯片定义汽车的时代，比人聪明的汽车机器人登上舞台将是这个产业的奇点！
对于投资来说，2024年，中国经济和资本市场都经历了一个从低估到价值回归的过程。
长恨春归无觅处，不知转入此中来。在一些行业和企业表现暗淡的同时，很多新兴企业正在崛起。
正如我在基石资本的22条投资“军规”中强调的那样：投资与宏观经济无关。股市不是经济的晴雨表。从5至10年来看，资本市场与宏观经济并不成正比。同时，股价走势与企业绩效也并非完全对应。
投资不是投资宏观经济，也不是投资行业和赛道，而是投资活生生的企业和企业家。我们投资的是微观中代表新经济的优秀企业。
站在2025年的新起点，AI的征程才刚刚拉开大幕，让我们继续坚定不移地重仓硬科技，大力支持民营企业发展，持续为中国经济和产业发展注入新动力，打好这场“做多中国”的持久战。