A few days ago, BAIC Group posted on its official website that the company has held 9.98% of Daimler AG's shares in 2019 by continuing to invest. At the same time, Daimler holds 9.55% of the shares of BAIC Group listed in Hong Kong (BAIC Motor) and 2.46% of baic group's shares in the A-share listed company (BAIC Blue Valley).
The figure of 9.98% means that BAIC has surpassed Geely Automobile to become Daimler's largest shareholder.
For this news that was suddenly announced after two years, BAIC did not explain too much, and the external remarks only called it a move to strengthen the long-term strategic cooperation between the two sides, and mentioned that according to an agreement between the two sides, BAIC has no plans to further increase its stake in Daimler.
Daimler also confirmed the news, Daimler CEO Conlinson said: "BAIC's shareholding reflects their commitment to our successful joint manufacturing and development alliance in the world's largest automotive market. ”
Although both sides were stating the matter in plain tones, the unusual action still sparked speculation from the outside world. In the long and intricate cooperation between BAIC and Daimler, the game of interests has been going on, and the current relationship seems to face a lot of unstable factors.
Hedging the risk of beijing Benz stock ratio change?
According to the official document of BAIC Group, the company has become the largest shareholder of Daimler in 2019, but the relevant news released by BAIC Group to the public that year was only an announcement in July to complete the cross-shareholding of 5% of Daimler.
The agreement between BAIC and Daimler to cross-shareholding was signed as early as 2013, known as the "Beidaihe" agreement. According to the "Beidaihe" agreement, after Daimler holds the shares of BAIC Motor Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of BAIC Group, BAIC Group will also take a stake in Daimler.
In addition, the "Beidaihe" agreement also has a core purpose, that is, to reconcile the different interests of BAIC Group and Daimler on the joint venture. The agreement stipulates that BAIC will increase its stake in Beijing Benz by 1% to achieve a controlling position, while Daimler will increase its stake in Beijing Benz sales company from 50% to 51%.
By realizing the holding of Beijing Benz, the "profit cow", BAIC Group can be said to have made a lot of money.
According to the 2020 BAIC financial report, in 2020, BAIC achieved operating income of 176.973 billion yuan, of which Beijing Benz contributed 169.69 billion yuan, accounting for 96% of the total revenue. It is worth mentioning that in 2019, the operating income of Beijing Benz accounted for 88.8% of the total revenue of BAIC. It is not difficult to see that BAIC Group's dependence on Beijing Benz in terms of profitability is gradually deepening.
In the face of such a prolific Beijing Mercedes-Benz, Daimler naturally hopes to share more cake. In fact, in recent years, there have been many media reports that Daimler is planning to start negotiations with BAIC Group to seek to increase its holdings in Beijing Benz to alleviate the decline in profits caused by the impact of the epidemic.
This situation is obviously not expected by BAIC Group, but at the same time it is not something that it can control.
According to the policy provisions, in 2022, China will abolish the restriction on foreign ownership of passenger cars. The baicchi group's choice to release this increase in holdings at the end of 2021 is inevitably a cause for reverie.
Some insiders believe that BAIC Group chose to announce it at this time, perhaps to pave the way for the change in the stock ratio of Beijing Benz. After increasing its stake in Daimler, BAIC divided profits by directly holding Beijing Benz on the one hand, and obtained profits from Beijing Benz on the other hand by means of being the largest shareholder of Daimler.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, told auto headline reporters: "This is the embodiment of BAIC Group's advanced consideration, which has made long-term strategic considerations for equity and the balance of interests in all aspects, and laid out the situation in advance, so that the cooperation between the two sides is in a relatively stable state, and it also brings relatively good profits." ”
Balance the interests of the three parties
BAIC increased its stake in Daimler to become the largest shareholder, which is also believed to be to restrain and balance competitors - Geely.
As Daimler's deepest partner in the Chinese market, BAIC Group has enjoyed revenue for many years, which will inevitably make other domestic car companies look red.
In fact, Geely Automobile has been seeking cooperation with Daimler. In February 2018, Geely Automobile raised $9 billion to acquire 9.69% of Daimler's shares through secondary market operations, becoming Daimler's largest shareholder and promising long-term shareholding. Since then, geely's cooperation with Daimler has gradually deepened.
Following the joint establishment of a high-end travel joint venture, Geely and Daimler once again reached a cooperation on Daimler's Smart brand in 2019 to jointly promote the transformation of the Smart brand into a global high-end electric intelligent car brand, and plan to launch the first batch of pure electric vehicle products in 2022 and sell them globally.
Geely's ambitions clearly do not stop there, after becoming the largest shareholder, Geely once sought to obtain a seat on Daimler's supervisory board, but was opposed by this core department. Some analysts believe that geely's ultimate goal in cooperation with Daimler is likely to achieve technical cooperation, in addition, the establishment of another joint venture of Mercedes-Benz in China is also very attractive to Geely.
Geely is not the only company that has caused concerns about BAIC, BYD and Daimler are also closely related, the two have jointly established the electric vehicle brand Denza many years ago, and there are rumors that Daimler will consider using BYD blade batteries in the future.
Relevant analysis said that for BAIC, which currently has weak independent brands and insufficient technical reserves, Beijing Benz is crucial. As a result, deepening cooperation with Daimler and reducing the threat posed by competitors has become one of the demands of BAIC Group. In this context, increasing daimler's stake and locking in interests may be a choice that BAIC has to make.