On the evening of May 14, Zhongbei Communication (603220. SH) announced that Li Liubing, the controlling shareholder and actual controller of the company, intends to transfer 5% of the company's shares (16.7619 million shares) to Shenzhen Baiyang Private Securities Fund Management Co., Ltd. (on behalf of Baiyang Qiushi Enterprising No. 1 Private Securities Investment Fund) (hereinafter referred to as Shenzhen Baiyang Private Equity Fund Company) by way of agreement transfer, with a transaction price of 438 million yuan.
It should be noted that Li Liubing's transfer price is 26.11 yuan per share, which is equivalent to an 86% discount if compared with the closing price of 30.23 yuan on the same day. Titanium Media APP noticed that the transferee, Shenzhen Baiyang Private Equity Fund Company, had bought and sold the shares of Zhongbei Communications three times this year, but each time it was bought high and sold low, and it did not make money.
In the secondary market, on May 15, the company's stock price opened low and went low, falling more than 5% intraday. As of the close, the company's share price closed at 28.85 yuan, down 4.57%, and the current total market value is 9.672 billion yuan.
The actual controller was transferred at a discount of 86%, and the private equity fund took over
After this equity change, Li Liubing's shareholding ratio will be reduced from the previous 26.69% to 21.69%, and he will still be the controlling shareholder and actual controller of the company, while the shareholding ratio of Shenzhen Baiyang Private Equity Fund Company will increase to 5%.
According to the public information of the private equity fund manager, Shenzhen Baiyang Private Equity Fund Co., Ltd. was established in 2015, and the current management scale of the company is less than 500 million yuan, with a total of 7 employees.
The actual controller of Shenzhen Baiyang Private Equity Fund Co., Ltd. is Wang Hanbao, who currently serves as the company's deputy general manager and fund manager. Judging from his resume, Wang Hanbao worked as a product engineer and liquid path engineer in Foxconn Technology Group and Shenzhen Mindray Biomedical Instrument and Electronics Co., Ltd. in the early days, and then worked as an investment manager in Guojin Fund Management Co., Ltd.
Titanium media APP noticed that Shenzhen Baiyang Private Equity Fund Co., Ltd. had bought and sold shares of Zhongbei Communications in January, February and April this year, but each time it was bought high and sold low, and finally failed to make a profit.
The private equity fund held by Shenzhen Baiyang Private Equity Fund Co., Ltd., Baiyang Qiushi Enterprising No. 1 Private Securities Investment Fund, was established in February 2023. It is worth noting that, according to the latest information submitted by the manager, the scale of the fund is less than 10 million yuan.
According to the announcement, Shenzhen Baiyang Private Equity Fund Co., Ltd. took over 5% of the shares of Libei Communications from Li Liubing at a price of 26.11 yuan per share, which is equivalent to a discount of 86% compared with the closing price of 30.23 yuan on May 14.
Before the transfer of this agreement, Li Liubing had reduced his holdings of Zhongbei Communication shares in 2022, and from June to July of that year, Li Liubing reduced his holdings of 4.7 million shares, cashing out a total of 51.3656 million yuan. After the reduction, Li Liubing's shareholding ratio was reduced from 27.99% to 26.6%.
The company's cross-border computing power controversy continues
In addition, in the simplified equity change report released by Zhongbei Communication, it was mentioned that on February 19 this year, Zhongbei Communication and the actual controller Li Liubing were criticized by the exchange for the untimely disclosure of information on the construction of the company's computing power center. Subsequently, on March 26, the Hubei Securities Regulatory Bureau took administrative supervision measures of issuing a warning letter to the company and Li Liubing.
According to public information, Zhongbei communication is mainly based on communication network construction business, and also takes into account the integration of communication and information systems, communication network optimization and maintenance, and communication network planning and design. At the beginning of 2023, on the basis of full research, Zhongbei Communication decided to carry out computing power business and formulated specific action plans, such as the establishment of a subsidiary responsible for the daily operation and management of computing power business, investment and acquisition of Anhui Rongboda Cloud Computing Co., Ltd.'s self-built Hefei Intelligent Computing Center, etc.
This year, Zhongbei Communication also won more than 700 million yuan of computing power orders. On April 8, the company issued an announcement on the signing of the computing power service contract, saying that the company signed the "Computing Service Contract" and its annex "Computing Service List" with Jinan Supercomputing Center Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jinan Supercomputing Center), and Jinan Supercomputing Center purchased computing services from the company for the computing power service of the intelligent computing center, with a contract amount of 730 million yuan and a service period of 60 months.
But the announcement sparked a lot of controversy.
On April 11, the Shandong Provincial Computing Center (National Supercomputing Jinan Center) issued a statement saying that the "Jinan Supercomputing Center" mentioned by Zhongbei Communications in the above announcement is not the National Supercomputing Jinan Center. Shandong Provincial Computing Center emphasized that the names "Jinan Supercomputer Center" and "Jinan Supercomputer" were all used by our unit beforehand, and any other unit or individual using the above names without authorization or using the above names for publicity and cooperation constitutes an infringement of the name right of our unit.
The next day, Zhongbei Communications received a regulatory letter from the Shanghai Stock Exchange on the incident. Subsequently, Zhongbei Communication urgently issued a supplementary explanation on the signing of the computing power service contract, indicating that the company's contracted partners have no direct or indirect equity relationship with the National Supercomputing Jinan Center. At the same time, the company explained that the abbreviation of "Jinan Supercomputer Center" in the previous announcement was for ease of reading, and sincerely apologized for the misunderstanding caused.
However, investors did not buy this explanation, and even accused the company of "rubbing" the Shandong Provincial Computing Center for speculation.
In fact, since taking the "free ride" of computing power, the share price of Zhongbei Communication has started to rise, and the company's stock price soared 236% last year. However, since the beginning of this year, the company's stock price has fallen by more than 15%.
In terms of performance, in recent years, the company's revenue has maintained an overall growth trend, increasing from 2.641 billion yuan in 2021 to 2.862 billion yuan in 2023. In terms of net profit, the company's indicator fluctuated greatly. From 2021 to 2023, the company's net profit attributable to the parent company will be 182 million yuan, 109 million yuan, and 144 million yuan respectively, and the net profit will decline in 2022, and then increase in 2023, but it has not yet recovered to the level of 2021.
According to the first quarter report of 2024, affected by factors such as the high gross profit margin of the new business of computing power, during the reporting period, the company's revenue and net profit attributable to the parent company were 729 million yuan and 46.4542 million yuan, respectively, a year-on-year increase of 30.55% and 103.25%, respectively, achieving a double increase in profit. (This article was first published on the Titanium Media APP, author|Li Ruohan)