In half a month' time, the joint venture equity ratio policy will be completely liberalized.
The closer you get to sensitive moments, the more weird things there are.
For example, baicchi group, which has always acted in a low-key manner, announced this week that it has been the largest shareholder of Daimler since the past two years or so.
Sooner or later, don't say it, pinch well, this is really a big mystery.
This can't help but speculate: the Beijing Benz stock ratio dispute has not yet "started", and it has already ended.
This can't help but be amazing: BAIC Group, cattle! Even Beijing Motor has twisted its decline in Hong Kong stocks, rising more than 20% this week, becoming the "most beautiful boy" in automobile stocks.
Just this week, there is also a car company that is often mentioned together with the equity of Beijing Benz, and big news has also come.
That's BMW Brilliance. Its minority shareholder, the Chinese shareholder Brilliance Group, has suffered setbacks in restructuring, and BMW seems powerless to try to save it.
Witness brilliance's "囧 shape", and then look at BAIC's "cow operation", the two are compared, which makes people sigh.
But what Kung Fu Auto wants to say is that whether it is Brilliance or BAIC, it is the "Adou" of the "joint venture tide" of thirty years. Look at Geely, who is the "master" of the wave of joint ventures and acquisitions in China's auto industry.
(1) "Ah Dou" suffers from the "most serious joint venture disease": one lying flat, one half lying flat
On the Internet, I often see people who have such a question, why Brilliance and BAIC do not look great, but Mercedes-Benz and BMW are looking for them to cooperate.
In fact, at this time and another time, in 2003, when BMW Brilliance was established and in 2005, when Beijing Benz was established, these two were still hot car companies in China. At that time, Geely, the Great Wall, and BYD were not very outstanding.
Before the joint venture with BMW, Brilliance's own brand had developed quite well, and Zhonghua Car was even a representative of the domestic high-end car at that time, and the production line and process equipment were also relatively leading at that time. Jinbei buses also sold well, and were once the leader of domestic light commercial vehicles.
But after working with BMW, everything changed. After all, the joint venture is too profitable, compared to the profit of the independent brand is simply not worth mentioning. Compared with the technology of international giants, Brilliance's little technology accumulation is not worth mentioning. Coupled with BMW's consistent strength, it has long seized the control of finance and sales, which means that Brilliance has long been reduced to BMW's foundry.
Brilliance has also used BMW's technology, such as the Huasong 7 directly using BMW's B48 2.0T engine, ZF 6AT gearbox, and found BMW's team tuning. However, the market recognition is not high, and the projects that cost a lot of research and development funds will eventually lose their money.
In contrast, BAIC's dependence on Mercedes-Benz technology is also very strong, and it has also made flagship SUV such as BJ80 with Mercedes-Benz technology. Compared with Brilliance, BAIC is a little different, it has always controlled the financial and sales rights in its own hands, although the right to speak in technology is not high, but its influence in the joint venture is still good. And other sectors of BAIC will not be completely destroyed, and eventually become insolvent.
However, compared with Brilliance, which is completely "lying flat", Beiqi can only be regarded as "half lying flat" at most. Therefore, although the "joint venture disease" of these two car companies is very serious, it is also the two most dangerous for everyone to "expect" the share ratio. After all, the two luxury car joint ventures contribute more than 90% of the net profits of the Group to which the Chinese side belongs.
(2) "A Dou" trend: Brilliance then pull down, BAIC turned over as the master?
These two "Ah Dou", where will they go in the future?
Although it has been some time since the thunderstorm of debt problems announced official bankruptcy, Brilliance's road to restructuring is actually not smooth at all, and the reason is not complicated, that is, lack of money.
At the end of August this year, Brilliance's second creditors' meeting approved BMW China's proposal to acquire assets such as the "Zhonghua" automobile brand. Among them, Brilliance's "Zhonghua" automobile brand and related assets were sold to BMW for 1.633 billion yuan. At that time, this news was all mixed, one was reluctant to sell such an orthodox brand as "Zhonghua" to a German company like BMW, and second, there was indeed no more suitable buyer, and only BMW, which had cooperated for many years, was more suitable to do this work.
From the current situation, even if BMW China's acquisition is successful, 1.633 billion yuan is still not enough for brilliance's revitalization, brilliance is very likely to be further split, brilliance "supermarket" will continue to operate. As for the 25% of the shares that have been agreed to be transferred to BMW before, let alone think about it, although the thing has not been officially sold, in fact, the money has long been spent.
However, for BMW, this is good news, the contribution to the joint venture is small Brilliance, the shares are further diluted, BMW has more motivation to do a big job.
In contrast, BAIC is much more relaxed, after all, BAIC Group is already the largest shareholder of Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler, and Daimler Group also holds 9.55% of the shares of BAIC Group's Hong Kong listed company BAIC Motor, in addition to the 2.46% stake of BAIC Blue Valley, an A-share listed company. To put it bluntly, everyone has been firmly tied together, and there are some scruples about doing things, at least in a short period of time, Mercedes-Benz will not mention the matter of letting go of the stock ratio. The official announcement of BAIC has played a very good "deterrent" role.
At the same time, the cooperation between the two is still very large, for example, Mercedes-Benz has "advanced" the introduction of four pure electric models, including EQA, EQB, EQC and EQS, indicating that Beijing Benz has even been an important part of the future electrification.
Compared with Brilliance's embarrassment, BAIC can be said to have lifted the stock ratio crisis without bloodshed. From a business point of view, it is still worthy of praise.
(3) Auspicious "The Way of Winning": Unity comes, and I find someone else
Speaking of Brilliance's "frustration" and BAIC's "pride", we have to mention Daimler's other major shareholder, Geely, which holds 9.69% of Daimler, and this "tragic" was surpassed by BAIC and became the second largest shareholder.
But perhaps Geely does not care about this majority shareholder at all, in fact, since the acquisition of Daimler shares through overseas companies in 2018, Geely has not participated in Daimler's internal operations at all, and seems to be more like a pure business investment.
The cooperation between Geely and Mercedes-Benz is also more technical. For example, the Lotus EMIRA, which has just been listed at the Guangzhou Motor Show, uses the same 2.0T engine of the Mercedes-Benz A45S. The reason is simple, Lotus is about to electrify the transformation, EMIRA confirmed that it is the last fuel model, there is no need to develop itself, and the Mercedes-Benz engine is used to "save the emergency". It is said that in exchange for what Lotus taught Mercedes-Benz some chassis tuning experience.
For example, recent news has come out that the next generation of Mercedes-Benz C-Class may use Geely's powertrain, most likely the hybrid assembly of the Drive-E series. At this year's Munich Motor Show, Mercedes-Benz exhibited the latest Smart concept car, which is based on Geely's Haohan SEA pure electric architecture, which will be produced at the Xi'an plant and officially launched in 2022.
This shows that Mercedes-Benz and Geely need each other in technology, and even rumors that the two intend to cooperate in the development of next-generation vehicle platforms, and will also jointly develop new cars to meet upcoming challenges.
Therefore, Geely does not have to worry about whether he is Daimler's largest shareholder in the end, and he is not suitable for me to find someone else.
Compared with Brilliance and BAIC, this approach is naturally more clever, of course, the premise is that there is enough technical confidence. And this source of confidence is the continuous efforts and investment in the past 20 years.
(4) Kung Fu shooting
Kung Fu Automobile believes that the upcoming Beijing Benz 2022 stock ratio dispute has ended ahead of schedule.
In front of Mercedes-Benz, BAIC took the initiative to attack, got the right to speak of the Mercedes-Benz parent company, and won a big victory in business; through cross-shareholding, it was firmly bound to Mercedes-Benz.
However, due to the lack of Geely-style technical underpinnings, BAIC still does not have much say in cooperation with Mercedes-Benz, and seems to be a major shareholder, but in fact it is not so comfortable.
Fortunately, BAIC still has time, the initiative is still in its own hands, and there is still a chance to strengthen its accumulation and win back a city in the future competition.
And Brilliance, I'm afraid I don't have this opportunity anymore. In front of BMW, Brilliance no longer has any "resistance" power.
From the unusually high-profile official announcement of BAIC Group, we can also speculate that the dispute over the joint venture share ratio in 2022 may be "climaxing".