"Wei Xiaoli" teamed up to cast a super unicorn

[WeChat: ilieyun) Beijing] February 27 report (text/ Riemann)

On February 24, the power battery manufacturer "Sunwoda" issued an announcement that its "Sunwoda Electric Vehicle Battery Co., Ltd." increased its capital by 2.43 billion yuan. In its list of 19 shareholders, the top three figures of the new car-making forces appeared: Ideal, Weilai and Xiaopeng.

In the capital increase report, Ideal and NIO subscribed for 400 million yuan and 250 million yuan respectively, and the two held 3.21% and 2.01% of the equity of Sunwoda Auto Battery respectively. According to the "Late Post" report, the second investor, Sky Top LLC, is actually a related entity of Xiaopeng Motors, which also invested 400 million yuan and obtained 3.21% of the shares.

"Wei Xiaoli" made a generous move, and the investment amount of the three companies accounted for a total of 8.53% of the shares of Sunwoda. In addition, Volkswagen subscribed to 100 million. From the perspective of the subscription ratio and the amount of capital contribution, the terminal car companies still occupy the majority, accounting for more than 30% of the total capital increase.

For the new car-making forces, this investment is an important layout of their own battery supply chain system.

Since last year, car companies have begun to lay out their own power battery industry chain. Before Tesla, Volkswagen self-developed batteries, after the honeycomb energy completed 5 rounds of financing out of the listing news, and now there are new car-making forces large-scale investment in Sunwoda, automotive power battery manufacturers the pattern is changing.

Whoever gets the battery wins the world

In the context of battery shortage, it has become imperative for major car companies to lay out their own battery industry chain.

In the face of the increasing capacity of the new energy market, new energy vehicle companies are happily accelerating their wild running, but they are full of anxiety. Although the car delivery volume of car companies has increased year after year, the shortage of important components of automobiles such as lidar, chips, and power batteries has always restricted the delivery of car companies, which is the most serious problem of power battery shortage.

Li Bin, the founder of Weilai Automobile, said in a conference call released in the financial report in March last year that the battery supply in the second quarter was its biggest bottleneck.

Taking Xiaopeng Automobile as an example, due to the shortage of batteries, the delivery of the car was directly caused. In February this year, Xiaopeng Automobile issued a statement that due to the impact of the epidemic, the shortage of key components such as lithium iron phosphate batteries has brought great uncertainty to the production of P5460 models, resulting in delays in the delivery of vehicles. In addition, Xiaopeng Automobile also caused consumer resistance due to the soaring price of lithium, copper, cobalt, etc., the main raw materials of the battery, in 2021, resulting in rising car prices.

The industry's judgment is that at present, the power battery gap is around 30% to 50%, and this situation may continue until 2025.

Previously, Weilai and the ideal battery manufacturers are only Ningde era, after investing in Sunwoda, it can be said that there is a second supplier, Xiaopeng Automobile's power battery suppliers include Ningde era, Yiwei lithium energy, Zhongxin Airlines and so on.

In addition to "Wei Xiaoli", other car companies are also building their own or investing in power battery suppliers.

Tesla was the first to start the action. In September last year, Tesla officially held a battery day event, directly released the 4680 battery cell and CTC technology, showing its determination to make batteries. Since then, there has been continuous news that Tesla is building its own battery factory in various factories.

This was followed by an event called Power Day held by the Volkswagen Group in March this year, which focused on the layout of the Volkswagen Group's battery technology and charging. The Volkswagen Group is currently developing four types of batteries: lithium iron phosphate batteries, ternary lithium batteries, high-manganese batteries and solid-state batteries. It also said that by 2030, Volkswagen will establish six power battery factories in Europe, and the annual production capacity of each factory will reach 40GWh.

Due to the high technical threshold in the field of power batteries, car companies will rarely increase investment and research and development in this regard. In addition to the above very few car companies directly involved in the production stage of the battery, other car companies are not involved in the battery production link, but choose to invest or through cooperation to hold the battery company.

CATL signed long-term contracts with Great Wall Motors and Daimler Trucks to establish deeper cooperative relations. Recently, it has also been reported that Jaguar Land Rover is negotiating with BYD on electric vehicle power batteries.

"A great place to stay"

All along, the new forces of car manufacturing have the phenomenon of "building and excellent investment", through several capital market fundraising, "Wei Xiaoli" has a lot of financial strength, frequently through foreign investment to continuously increase the industrial chain.

The ideal investment direction mainly revolves around its own industrial chain. In August 2017, Ideal Auto invested in Liushen Optoelectronics for precision lasers and completed its Pre-A round of financing; in July 2020, Ideal Auto invested in the B round of financing for Zhixing Automobile, which develops autonomous driving technology; Neolithic for intelligent hardware in the logistics industry, and also appeared in the nearly 200 million yuan A+ round of financing in March 2020.

Weilai has established independent capital and has a larger investment territory. In addition to investing in enterprises in the industrial chain of autonomous driving, radar lasers, and batteries, it also extends its tentacles to automotive services and content platforms - Shouqi ride-hailing, car travel, love parking, car small, hurricane travel. It has even invested in consumer companies that are not very relevant to their own industries, such as Whale, a company that markets digital services across the globe, and FIT, a smart fitness brand.

According to previous news, Xiaopeng Automobile will also enter the VC, and the investment road is not only cars.

From the perspective of the industrial chain, the cooperation between Sunwoda and the new car-making forces is undoubtedly a "pearl-to-pearl combination".

Judging from the cooperative enterprises of the new car-making forces in 2021, they are basically tied to the Ningde era. Weilai and the ideal battery supplier are only CATL Times; Xiaopeng Automobile's partners are NINGDE Times and Ewell Lithium Energy; Hezhong New Energy's partners are NINGDE Times, Jiewei Power, Huading Guolian; WM Motor's partners Tafil, Ruipu Energy, and Ningde Times.

Previously, Ideal and Weilai only had one battery supplier in the Ningde era, with limited supply, and now it has invested in Sunwoda, which undoubtedly broadens its own battery supply system.

For Sunwoda, the investment of Weilai, Ideal and Xiaopeng also means that it will share the market share of these three head new forces.

The market share of these three companies should not be underestimated.

According to data from the first half of last year, the total installed energy of the battery of the new car-making forces, including Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng, Hezhong New Energy, Weima, Zero Run, etc., is 9.456GWh. Tesla's domestic purchase volume is 8.572GWh, plus exports a total of about 11GWh. In this comparison, the new forces of car manufacturing have played a supporting role in the procurement of the entire power battery market. Weilai ranked first with an installed volume of 4.433GWh, Xiaopeng ranked second with 2.298GWh, and the ideal installation volume was 1.177GWh. The installation volume of these three companies has reached about 83% of the total battery installation of the new car-making force.

According to LatePost, Xiaopeng Motors has determined to use Sunwoda's battery in a certain version of its new model, the Xiaopeng G9. Sunwoda will be a certain version of the A supply, with a supply share of more than 50%.

However, a person close to the ideal car told "LatePost" that after participating in the capital increase of Sunwoda, the ideal power battery supplier is still only one ningde era, if the battery supplier switches, there will be a new product announcement to disclose.

It is worth mentioning that cooperation with new car-making forces may not be limited to batteries.

In February this year, NIO announced its entry into the mobile phone industry, announcing that it would make mobile phones. In the wave of automotive intelligence in the future, it will give birth to a linkage between mobile phones and car machines, and players who break into the mobile phone industry from the automotive industry are preceded by Geely Automobile Li Shufu.

It should not be underestimated that Sunwoda, founded in 1997, also has a mature supply of 3C consumer batteries. Previously, it was the main battery supplier of Apple's mobile phone, and it was also the main battery supplier of Huawei's new-generation flagship mate9.

After Weilai invested in the shares, Sunwoda is also likely to reach a cooperation on the supply of Weilai mobile phone batteries.

From an investment financial point of view, investing in Sunwoda at this time is more likely to receive a large valuation premium. On the one hand, the current valuation of Sunwoda Battery Company is about 12.82 billion, compared with the same queue of Hive Energy, its valuation has reached 46 billion.

Especially in the context of tight batteries, as a power battery manufacturer that has jumped into the top ten in China, Sunwoda still has a lot of market growth space.

As soon as the news of the capital increase came out, as of the close of trading on February 25, Sunwoda rose 4.05% to close at 36.2 yuan, with a total market value of 62.226 billion yuan. At the same time, the market value of the Ningde era was 1.23 trillion yuan.

The pattern changes

Through the investment and self-construction of car companies, the market pattern of battery manufacturers is actually changing.

In the top ten domestic power battery companies in 2021, CATL ranked first, with a loading volume of 80.51GWh, accounting for 52.1%; BYD followed, with a loading volume of 25.06GWh, accounting for 16.2%; followed by Zhongxin Airlines, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, lg new energy, hive energy, Ewell lithium energy, Tafer new energy, Fu energy technology and Sunwoda.

Today, this pattern is being broken.

In the increasing new energy market, the production capacity of the Ningde era has been difficult to meet the supply needs of car companies. Car companies have to find other suppliers to cooperate, although it may be a little difficult to completely replace the Ningde era, but more "two supply" and "three supply" companies are becoming a reality to share their market share.

This also provides development opportunities for second-line power battery companies such as Sunwoda.

Founded in 1997, Sunwoda began to transform and upgrade in 2008, expanded the new energy vehicle power battery business, and carried out a comprehensive layout of the new energy industry: with the lithium-ion battery industry as the core, the upstream extends to key links such as cell positive and negative electrode materials and power cell manufacturing, and the downstream extends to electric vehicles, energy storage power stations, time-sharing leasing and other industries, forming a business blueprint for the integration of the whole industry chain, and quickly becoming one of the leading enterprises in the domestic new energy industry.

At present, it has formed six major industrial clusters such as 3C consumer batteries, intelligent hardware products, power batteries and powertrains, energy storage systems and integrated energy, automation and intelligent manufacturing, and laboratory testing services.

In 2011, Sunwoda was the first company on the Gem to enter the capital market with a high profile as "the overall research and development, manufacturing and sales of lithium battery modules".

In terms of production bases, at present, Sunwoda Automotive Battery is building new power battery production bases in Nanchang, Jiangxi and Zaozhuang, Shandong. Among them, the Total Investment of the Nanchang Plant is about 20 billion yuan, and the planned battery production capacity is 50 GWh, which will be invested in four phases. The Zaozhuang project also invests about 20 billion yuan and plans to build a power battery and energy storage battery factory with an annual production capacity of 30 GWh.

In 2019, Sunwoda's performance has made great progress due to Sunwoda's successful entry into Renault-Nissan's supply chain, and the demand for related models is expected to reach 1.157 million units from 2020 to 2026. In addition, it has been designated for the EasyJet X project, and the demand for related models is expected to reach 366,000 units from 2020 to 2025. This will undoubtedly provide a broad market outlet for Sunwoda power batteries.

According to the data of the Power Battery Application Branch, the installed capacity of the power battery of Sunwoda new energy vehicles reached 645MWh in 2019, an increase of 580.02% year-on-year. It was also in this year that Sunwoda ranked among the top ten in terms of power battery installed capacity for the first time.

Judging from Sunwoda's profitability, its loss margin is narrowing.

According to the sunwoda announcement, the current automotive battery project is still in a state of loss. In the first nine months of 2021, the company's revenue was 1.54 billion yuan and a net loss was 250 million yuan. In 2020, Sunwoda's auto battery revenue was 470 million yuan and a loss of 320 million yuan.

In terms of financing, in addition to this capital increase, In September last year, Sunwoda Auto Battery completed the first round of financing of 750 million yuan, and four new shareholders entered the shares. The investors included Wang Mingwang, the actual controller of Sunwoda, and a limited partnership owned by Wang Wei.

After the completion of the capital increase, the registered capital of Sunwoda Battery will increase from 5.087 billion yuan to 6.325 billion yuan. Of the 2.43 billion yuan of the capital increase, 1.237 billion yuan is included in the registered capital of Sunwoda Automobile Battery, and the remaining capital increase is included in the capital reserve of the target company and is used for daily operating funds.

With the increasing new energy market, in the future, Sunwoda's battery installed capacity will rise again. Previously, Sunwoda also disclosed that it has obtained orders for power batteries for many new models such as SAIC-GM-Wuling and Dongfeng Liuqi, and has also carried out business cooperation with Renault-Nissan Alliance, Geely, Dongfeng Liuqi and other car companies.