Raising 50 billion yuan with 30% of the equity and promising to invest all in research and development, the new brand of automobiles incubated by the state-owned enterprise is calling out Wei Xiaoli
GAC Aeon has always been called "the least like state-owned enterprise" in the industry. Figure/IC
Wen | Reporter of Caijing Li Yang zhao cheng
Edited | Shi Zhiliang
State-owned enterprises are squeezing into the camp of new car-making forces.
As an independent brand of GAC Group that just flew solo in 2020, Aeon achieved certain market results in 2021, with annual sales exceeding 120,000 units, an increase of 119% year-on-year, exceeding the annual target. According to the plan, GAC Aeon will challenge the sales target of 240,000 units in 2022.
From the perspective of sales alone, Aeon has been at the forefront of new energy vehicle brands, but to replace "Wei Xiaoli" with "Ai Xiaowei", the test is not only sales, but the core competitiveness of enterprises in the future development of the industry. Ideal, Weilai and other high-valued new car manufacturers have established a foothold in their own subdivision price range market, while Eian has not yet achieved a leading position in the price range of 100,000-200,000 yuan.
With the landing of the Ean mixed reform, the new mechanism and the new assessment plan will promote its further development. At present, the next step of GAC A-an is to introduce strategic A-round financing, which is expected to exchange 30% of its equity for 50 billion yuan of financing, and invest all 50 billion yuan in research and development, while planning to carry out an IPO in 2023.
Whether it can become the first share of the mixed reform IPO of state-owned car companies
Eian is not the first state-owned car company to carry out mixed reform.
In the past few years, learning from the new car-making forces has become the main theme of traditional car companies, and before the mixed reform of GAC Aean, Chery, Changan and other pioneer troops have walked on the road of mixed reform, but the effect is not outstanding. In August 2021, as a new energy project incubated by GAC Passenger Vehicles, Aeon also embarked on the road of mixed reform.
The history of Aeon can be traced back to December 2015, when the new energy passenger car market was still in its infancy, and GAC Passenger Vehicles officially established a new energy branch to systematically gather its own complex new energy vehicle related technologies to cope with the great changes in automobile electrification.
In July 2017, the new energy autonomous business of GAC Group underwent a second drastic change, and THE NEW ENERGY BRANCH OF GAC PASSENGER VEHICLE WAS OFFICIALLY INDEPENDENT, BECOMING a subsidiary of GAC Group, alongside GAC Passenger Vehicles, and the new energy-related models of GAC Passenger Vehicles were transferred to the new company.
At that time, the main models of GAC New Energy were the hybrid version of GS4, the hybrid version of GE3 and the pure electric version of GE3, almost all of which were developed and produced on the basis of Trumpchi models, whether it was product strength or market share, compared with BYD and BAIC New Energy, which had become famous in the new energy vehicle market, it was incomparably weak, even compared with Changan and SAIC.
Turning point in 2019, in April of this year, the first model of GAC BJEV AION series AION S was officially released, and the avant-garde shape and the rare L2-level automatic driving function at that time made the AION S attract much attention as soon as it was released; just six months later, GAC BJEV released the first domestic L3-level automatic driving mass production model AION LX.
At the Guangzhou Auto Show a year later, GAC Aean, which already had a certain market base, announced that it would break away from GAC Passenger Cars and become an independent brand completely juxtaposed with Trumpchi, and at the same time, "GAC New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd." was also renamed "GAC Aean New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd."
GAC Ae's single flight laid the foundation for the subsequent mixed reform listing. On August 30, 2021, GAC Aeon announced that it will carry out mixed reform and will introduce strategic investment to start the journey of separate listing.
In the view of Feng Xingya, general manager of GAC Group, policy guidance, capital pull, innovation drive, science and technology and talent support are the four major characteristics of Aeon mixed reform.
"Especially in terms of capital and talent, the two seem to be two factors, but they are actually related. If mixed reform is not carried out, the interests of employees, especially the interests of backbone employees, are not combined with the development of enterprises, and it is not enough to rely on salaries alone. Wages are paid less, employees do not work; wages are paid more, and the cost is not competitive. Only by binding the development of the company with the power of capital, and linking the results of enterprise development with the results of work, can we not only produce products at low cost, but also mobilize the enthusiasm of employees. This is the main starting point of the Aeon mixed reform. Feng Xingya told the "Finance" reporter.
The specific details were disclosed on March 17, 2022, that is, GAC Ae-An will implement equity incentives for 679 employees of GAC Ae-An and 115 scientific and technological personnel of GAC Research Institute in the form of a non-public agreement capital increase, and the relevant incentive personnel will contribute a total of 1.782 billion yuan. At the same time, GAC Group announced that GAC Aeon has completed a total of 2.566 billion yuan of financing, will launch AEAN's joint-stock system transformation and A round of financing in due course, and actively seek spin-off and listing in the future.
After the completion of the capital increase and share expansion, the registered capital of GAC Aean increased from 6 billion yuan to about 6.421 billion yuan. GAC Group will directly or indirectly hold approximately 93% of the equity of GAC Aean and is the controlling shareholder of GAC Aean. In addition, the shareholding ratio of GAC Aian employees and scientific and technological personnel of GAC Research Institute is 4.55%; the total shareholding of three strategic investors such as Chengtong Group, Nanwang Kinetic Energy and Guangzhou Aian is 2%.
Zeng Qinghong, chairman of GAC Group, told the "Finance" reporter, "The mixed reform of Aian has been basically completed, the next step is to introduce strategic A round of financing, there are currently more than 250 potential investors and institutions, it is expected to choose 30, with 30% of the equity for 50 billion yuan of financing, will all be invested in research and development." ”
According to the plan, GAC Aean will complete the A round of financing in September and October 2022, and strive to achieve an independent IPO in 2023, as for the listing location, Gu Huinan, general manager of GAC Aian, said in mid-March that H shares or A shares.
If the IPO goes well, GAC Aeon will be the first company listed after the mixed ownership reform of the subsidiary of a state-owned car company.
The sword refers to where the strength of "Ai Xiaowei" lies
For E-An, GAC Group has high hopes, and mixed reform is just the beginning.
Feng Xingya said, "Aeon's spin-off and mixed reform is an important pillar for the future development of GAC Group, at present, GAC Group has annual sales of more than 2 million units, with a market value of less than 200 billion yuan, and Aeon is likely to be valued as a new car-making force, the market value of subsidiaries is high, and the parent company will also rise." In addition, the mixed reform will also bring the sharing of platforms, the sharing of resources and the linkage of the entire system, whether it is for Aeon itself or GUANGZHOU AUTOMOBILE Group, which are more conducive to the market-oriented reform of the enterprise itself. In Feng Xingya's view, "the goal of the Ae-Ang mixed reform is to challenge the new forces of car-making and change the current pattern of 'Wei Xiaoli' to 'Ai Xiaowei'." ”
At present, when it comes to the automotive industry revolution and the mention of automotive intelligent technology, Volkswagen's first reaction has long been Xiaopeng, Weilai, Ideal and other new car manufacturers, and traditional car companies have been declining for a long time.
Aehan is difficult to measure by the standards of a traditional car company. GAC Aeon has always been called "the least state-owned enterprise" in the industry, mainly because it is not only not as conservative and stable as traditional car companies, but even more radical than the new car-making forces.
This feature is reflected in Aeon's products. In April 2019, the first car AION S released by GAC Aion had a range of 509 kilometers, which is an extremely leading data in 2019, when the endurance is generally 400 kilometers, and its L2-level automatic driving function is also half a chip ahead of traditional car companies.
Immediately after, Aion released its second mass production model, AION LX, which is the country's first intelligent car with an autonomous driving level of L3, and its radicalization of advanced technology has surpassed that of a number of new car-making forces.
To this day, L3-level automatic driving is still in the embarrassing state of "technology can be realized, regulations are not allowed", and with the improvement of the corresponding certification regulations, car companies can not be said to achieve L3-level automatic driving before completing the certification of new regulations, and models with L3-level functions can only be forced to become "L2++-level", which shows how aggressive L3-level automatic driving is in 2019.
For autonomous driving, Zheng Mo, senior partner of Roland Berger and vice president of the Greater China region and head of the automotive industry center, told Caijing reporter: "Technology is no longer the shackles of automatic driving, regulations and costs are the greater difficulties." ”
The scale of Aeon's acceptance of new technologies, which has been incubated by traditional car companies, can be seen. It is precisely because of its style of actively embracing new technologies that GAC Aeon has always called itself an automotive technology company in its publicity.
"Aeon's advantage is technology, software is very important, but many people have ignored that software is operated on the basis of hardware, the importance of hardware is definitely not under the software, the current industry ignored hardware, is one of the advantages of GAC Aean." Gu Huinan, general manager of GAC Eian, told the Caijing reporter: "The ICV + EV (intelligent + electrification) technology foundation laid by the GAC Research Institute in recent years has laid a good layout foundation for us, so the rapid development of the entire industry next, EAN hopes to be able to seize." ”
Aeon's core technologies include the ADiGo ecosystem, which has been iterated to version 4.0, a magazine battery that does not ignite, and a sponge silicon anode chip battery that can achieve a long endurance of 1,000 kilometers and is already installed in AION LX Plus.
At present, GAC Aeon has five models on sale: AION S, AION S Plus, AION Y, AION LX Plus, and AION V Plus. In terms of sales, Aeon has been doing well. In the second year after its establishment (2020), sales exceeded 60,000 units, an increase of 42.9% year-on-year, of which Aion S became the main sales model, with annual sales of more than 40,000 units, ranking fourth in the domestic new energy market.
In 2021, the sales volume of 120,000 units of Eian surpassed the three new forces of car manufacturing, Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal, and the sales of the three in 2021 did not exceed 100,000 units.
Whether valuations can catch up with sales
Changing "Wei Xiaoli" into "Ai Xiaowei" is the development goal of GAC Aean. This goal includes at least two stages, one is to become a new force in car manufacturing, and the other is to become a new force in head car manufacturing.
Since the new four modernizations of automobiles, there are many new car brands, and the new forces of car manufacturing have become a very special circle, which represents the business model of continuous financing of car manufacturing, the extremely forward-looking automotive technology, the fanatical pursuit of young people and the subversion of the valuation system of traditional manufacturing, not just depending on the time of establishment.
Tesla, founded in 2003, is recognized as a global leader in new car-making forces, but BYD, which also entered the automotive industry in 2003, has never had a new power aura. Even if BYD has announced the ban on the sale of fuel vehicles, it can only appear in the image of a new energy activist in the consumer's impression.
GAC Aeon is an independent brand incubated by GAC Group, which was established for only three years, but the brand of GAC's own brand has always been hit on E'an, and whether it can really be called a new force in car manufacturing still has to be a question mark.
Cao He, president of Allianz Auto Investment Management (Beijing) Co., Ltd., told caijing reporter, "The new forces of car manufacturing that I understand refer to new energy automobile companies that rely on financing and refinancing, and I never think that the new brands of traditional car companies can be called new car-making forces." For Aeon's goal of "Ai Xiaowei", Cao He believes that it is more of a marketing gimmick and does not have a comparative significance.
Zheng Mo expressed a similar view to the "Finance" reporter, "We will take the brands incubated by traditional car companies as a separate classification, from the perspective of Aian, we have only made some new attempts at ownership, and the product side is actually the brand of traditional car companies." ”
Regardless of origin, whether Aean has taken the lead in product competitiveness is also unknown. The comparison between the head enterprises is not just a simple comparison of sales, but a comparison of core competitiveness.
Taking NIO as an example, although only 91,000 cars were sold in 2021, it was inconspicuous in the entire auto market, in another way, NIO almost monopolized China's electric vehicle market of more than 400,000 yuan, and it is also the only Chinese brand in this segment to gain a firm foothold.
Coincidentally, the reason why Ideal Car is famous is not only its annual sales of 90,000 units, but Ideal ONE firmly locks in the first position with absolute advantages in the 2021 medium and large SUV sales ranking, in this market segment, Ideal Car has broken through the barriers of fuel, electric, domestic and joint ventures.
Dominating the market segment where their own products are located is the best embodiment of the core competitiveness of the head enterprise, and because of this, Xiaopeng, Weilai, and ideal, which emphasize technology, can obtain a large valuation in the capital market, and it does not make much sense to talk about sales advantages aside from the market segment.
From this point of view, Aean still has a long way to go. At present, the price range of Aeon's core products is 100,000-200,000 yuan, in this segment, Aeon is far from forming its own absolute advantage, not to mention that in the use of E-An models, the operation category (that is, online car-hailing, etc.) still occupies a considerable share.
According to the plan, GAC Aean will challenge the sales target of 240,000 units in 2022, and if it is successfully completed, AEAN will have a good market share.
In addition, profitability is also one of the pain points for Aean's future. According to the 2021 financial report data of GAC Group, in 2021, the total operating income of GAC Group was about 429.755 billion yuan, an increase of about 8.66% year-on-year; the total operating income of the consolidated caliber was about 75.676 billion yuan, an increase of about 19.82% year-on-year; and the net profit attributable to the shareholders of listed companies exceeded 7.3 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 23% year-on-year.
Behind the poor financial data, its own brand is not glamorous. According to the financial report data, the autonomous sector of GAC Group and GAC E-An are expanding losses, reaching 4.48 billion yuan, and according to estimates, E-An's loss in 2021 will reach about 1 billion yuan.
At present, according to the calculation of equity incentives for mixed reform employees, the valuation of GAC Aian is only about 39 billion yuan, but according to the expectation of 50 billion yuan of 30% share financing in the A round, the valuation of GAC Aian will be as high as 166.7 billion yuan.
Whether the value of this enterprise can really be like a slogan, comparable to "Wei Xiaoli", is full of variables. After all, for Aean, mixed reform is only the beginning, and it is still in its infancy.