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
过去一年，牛市重启，科技领航。
正如我在2024年10月所说的那样，“924”的行情并不是一个反弹，而是一个反转，自那以后，中国资本市场经历了一个从低估到价值回归的过程。
当上证指数来到10年最高点，“易中天”一年翻几倍，“寒王”市值一度突破6000亿，其他科技股也动辄百倍PE、百亿估值，有人贪婪，有人恐惧，还有人问我：科技股存在估值泡沫吗？
我说，这是一个时代的饥渴与焦虑，在资本市场中的投射。如果你理解这一点，你就不会对当前科技投资的热潮感到困惑。
投资与宏观经济无关，但确与地缘政治有关。
中美关系决定了未来几十年的投资，地缘政治极大构建了我们这个时代的饥渴与焦虑，深刻重塑了我们的投资行为。
中国的饥渴与焦虑是什么？第四次工业革命的大幕已然开启，第三次工业革命的短板却还未补齐，时不我待！
所以当有人疑惑，为什么国产算力芯片企业，技术难以望英伟达之项背，却有这么高的估值？为什么英伟达的PE只有50倍，“中国版英伟达”却有300倍？
我说，逻辑刚好反了，正是因为短期内追不上英伟达，这些企业才被赋予了更高的战略性定价，而且差距越大，战略价值越高。越得不到越饥渴，越追不上越焦虑，如果有一天，我们的算力芯片完全突破了，估值反倒会下来。
中国最美的自然风景在哪里？我认为很大一部分分布在横断山脉及其周边，梅里雪山、玉龙雪山、贡嘎山、四姑娘山、九寨沟等等都在这里。巨大的落差，结构性断裂，形成了壮丽的风景。
硬科技投资就是这样，技术代差、能力断点、体系缺口——难度的跃迁，带来了估值的跃迁，成功之后也将带来回报的跃迁。
这一逻辑，除了算力芯片领域，在存储芯片、商业航天等中国与外国差距比较大的领域，也都有所体现。
正因如此，从2016年开始，基石资本就果断将投资重点聚焦到硬科技、新兴产业和生命科学与健康三个领域——在这个语境下，“硬科技”特指那些与美国有代差的重要产业。
得益于这样的前瞻性，基石资本很早就在半导体、人工智能和机器人等关键领域实现了全产业链布局。
展望未来，科技进步与产业升级是无尽的前沿，硬科技产业差距的缩小亦无法一蹴而就，技术创新和国产替代的双重机会之窗才刚刚打开，任重道远，未来可期。
作为投资机构，基石资本将继续投身于每个时代的饥渴与焦虑，顺着时代的张力前行，向最难、也最重要的方向延伸。