After a few years of silence, Yang Rong, the "legendary figure" of China's auto market, seems to be planning his new round of "return".
Recently, Zhengdao Group (01188), which is headed by Yang Rong, issued a remarkable acquisition announcement. According to the announcement, the company entered into a memorandum of understanding with Hebei ZTE Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. on March 23, 2022, to acquire not less than 51% of the equity interest of ZTE Automobile.
Recall that the last grand appearance of Zhengdao Group was at the Beijing and Shanghai Auto Shows 4 or 5 years ago. At that time, Zhengdao declared its ambition to return to the Chinese auto market at the speed of 6 new cars in 2 years.
However, Yang Rong's car-making story once again ended abruptly. Not only was the 2020 mass production plan aborted due to the plant shutdown, but Zhengdao Group also chose to suspend trading in Hong Kong in April 2021 due to poor management.
Now, nearly a year after the suspension of trading, Yang Rong intends to return to the public eye by "renewing the frontier" with ZTE Automobile. However, whether this is another "satellite release" operation, we still have to put a big question mark.
"Frontier Continuation" with ZTE
What can make the "scumbag" turn back is true love?
Speaking of the origin of Yang Rong and ZTE, there is actually a short history behind it.
In 1999, seeing that Brilliance's way to produce cars was not feasible, Yang Rong decided to marry Tianye Automobile, whose predecessor was Baoding Automobile Factory, and took over its ZTE Automobile in an attempt to open up the pickup truck business.
Then, at the end of 2002, with the equity of Brilliance Automobile being nationalized, ZTE Automobile was also "abandoned" by Brilliance. In 2003, Xinhuachen completed the divestment of ZTE and also took the BMW project with it, and its original 60% stake in ZTE was accepted by Zhejiang Huaxiang Group.
In this regard, some people have commented that ZTE was just a "by-product" of Brilliance in order to catch a BMW at that time. Later, several major shareholders were changed successively, resulting in ZTE Automobile finally being unable to successfully complete the market-oriented transformation, and its development once stagnated.
So why did Yang Rong choose to try to regain his "old love" at this time?
In the eyes of the outside world, Yang Rongxiang is nothing more than ZTE's vehicle production qualifications. Because the Ningbo factory previously invested and built by Zhengdao seems to have been aborted, and second, there is news that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is about to issue the strictest foundry policy in history, requiring not only that the foundry enterprise needs to have production qualifications, but also that the entrusting party must also have it.
For this reason, if the right path continues to pursue this dream of building a car, there are not many options in front of it. Holding a vehicle factory through the acquisition is undoubtedly the best choice.
But Kung Fu Auto believes that Yang Rong may be aiming at the upcoming trillion hydrogen energy industry.
First, let's look at a piece of news.
On March 8, the signing ceremony of ZTE Automobile's K platform production and manufacturing project was held in Rizhao High-tech Zone. It is reported that the signing marks the transfer of all the strategic centers of Hebei ZTE Automobile to Rizhao.
As early as 2019, ZTE Motor began to invest 4 billion yuan in Rizhao to build a factory covering an area of about 1,086 acres and planning and designing a capacity of 300,000 vehicles per year. Moreover, the factory also has the production qualification of "1 word head", "5 word head", "6 word head" and "7 word head", which means that Rizhao ZTE Automobile has officially become a vehicle enterprise with production capacity of commercial vehicles (pickup trucks), special vehicles, cars, SUV fuel models and new energy models.
Second, you may wonder, what does this have to do with the hydrogen industry? The key is that Shandong, where Rizhao is located, is a large province of hydrogen energy, and is also the first and only demonstration province in the country to promote the application of hydrogen energy on a large scale, not only has a strong hydrogen energy industry cluster, but also has many hydrogen energy leaders gathered in it.
Coupled with the recent "Medium- and Long-term Plan for the Development of hydrogen energy industry (2021-2035)" jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, under the blueprint of the 12 trillion hydrogen energy industry, it is impossible for Yangrong, who has a sensitive sense of business, not to see the business opportunities.
In fact, the route of developing hydrogen energy vehicles also coincides with the positioning of Zhengdao Group in the future to focus on hydrogen fuel extender vehicles. Just speaking of this, we can't help but wonder, can Yang Rong really build a car with this acquisition of ZTE?
It has not been mass-produced in the 12th year of its establishment
How long will Yang Rong's "satellite" be put?
Speaking of the Zhengdao Group, which is officially registered in 2010, the company that Yang Rong is running has established a development direction with new energy vehicles as the core from the beginning.
However, from the joint venture with Jianghuai in 2010, to the subsequent transfer to Yingkou, Liaoning to build a new energy vehicle factory, and then to the rumor that the headquarters was to be settled in Shantou and the party headlines at that time, it can be said that Yang Rong has been struggling to find a way to land in China.
In 2017, Zhengdao made a high-profile appearance at the Shanghai Auto Show with the H600, and the new car offensive released at the next Geneva Auto Show and the Beijing Auto Show, Yang Rong posed a strong return to the battle.
But later, everyone also saw that one of the "satellites" that Yang Rong had let go of was lost one after another and fell to the ground. This also makes people wonder whether Yang Rong's vision is not good, or bad luck.
Take, for example, the Ningbo plant that Zhengdao invested in 2017. In that year, Zhengdao Group signed an agreement with the Government of Ningbo Fenghua District and Beijing Weikawei Auto Parts Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jingwei Shares), and the production base settled in Ningbo Fenghua, with an annual output of 300,000 vehicles and a total planned investment of about 17 billion yuan.
Among them, although Jingwei Shares, one of the partners, invested heavily in the transformation of new energy in 2017 and 2018, the projects were later defeated, and under the large losses, the company was overwhelmed and began to transfer assets one after another. Later, the factory that Zhengtao intended to build in Ningbo was also gone.
In the view of Kung Fu Automobile, zhengdao group, which is currently in suspension, suddenly threw out the news of acquiring 51% of the equity of ZTE Automobile, which is obviously paving the way for its resumption. After all, its stock price before the suspension was HK$0.04, which can be described as a "penny stock".
In addition, according to the 2021 financial interim report previously released by Zhengdao Group, the company's operating income in the first half of last year was only HK$1.07 million, down 39.34% year-on-year, and the net loss attributable to the parent company was HK$21.12 million.
With such a bad operating situation, where did Yang Rong's money to acquire ZTE's equity come from? Is it to wait for the review to cut a wave of leeks and then...
In fact, for an auto company that has been established for nearly 12 years, it has not yet produced a car, which undoubtedly says something.
However, from the perspective of the development of today's automotive industry, yangrong's previously proposed technical routes such as range extenders and graphene now seem to have a certain degree of foresight. For example, the ideal car, which focuses on the range-extending route, has achieved very good results; and the graphene battery was officially released by GAC Aean last year.
Yang Rong said in an earlier media interview that the so-called Internet car is more of a gimmick, and the real innovation should be combined with finance to let the Internet serve people free of charge.
Yang Rong, who is 65 years old this year, has always regarded Zhengdao Automobile as his "second venture". But building cars is clearly not its ultimate goal.
"The real finance, that is, the Yang's financial tools I developed, the golden key of the sharing economy developed, should become my main business in the future and become my ultimate destination." Yang Rong said earlier.
Kung Fu shoots
Through the acquisition of 51% of the equity of ZTE Automobile, Yang Rong's return to the "script" this time is obviously a little weaker than the previous times, and it is more of a "feeling".
From YangRong's "never abandoning" car-making business in recent years, we can really feel the determination of this former car market legend to stir up the Chinese auto market again.
It is just that the pattern of China's automobile has been changed by the new car-making forces led by "Wei Xiaoli", and the automotive industry has also entered an unprecedented era of century-old change.
Yang Rong is still that Yang Rong, but the era is no longer that era.