Zhuhai, Guangdong, is about to run a super IPO.
Investment community - Tiantian IPO learned that this week, Gaojing Solar Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Gaojing Solar") officially submitted a prospectus, intending to be listed on the Growth Enterprise Market, with CICC acting as the sponsor.
Headquartered in Zhuhai, Gaojing Solar is helmed by Xu Zhiqun, an alumnus of Jilin University. Since joining the company, he has been immersed in the semiconductor and photovoltaic materials field, and was the chief operating officer of Jinkosolar, a leading photovoltaic company. Later, IDG Capital co-founded Gaojing Solar with a senior team in the industry and Zhuhai Huafa Group, and Xu Zhiqun served as the company's chairman and general manager. Along the way, Gaojing Solar has assembled a team of luxury investors, and the valuation reached 20 billion yuan last year.
At this point, we have seen a hot scene: one by one photovoltaic IPOs are coming.
Chittagong alumni went south
Kill a unicorn and go IPO
This is the story of Jilin University alumni going south to start a business.
Back in 1990, Xu Zhiqun graduated from Jilin University and officially entered the workplace. Majoring in semiconductor materials and chemistry, he has worked in Henan, Liaoning, Shanghai and other cities, and has stayed in companies such as China Sijia Semiconductor Materials Co., Ltd., Saint-Gobain Quartz (Jinzhou) Co., Ltd., Shanghai General Silicon Crystal Materials Co., Ltd., Hairun Solar Technology Co., Ltd. and other semiconductor materials and crystalline silicon material companies. During this period, Xu Zhiqun was responsible for the work from technology to production and accumulated rich experience.
In 2008, Xu Zhiqun joined JinkoSolar, a PV company that had not been established for a long time, as vice president and general manager of the wafer business unit. In the following years, Xu Zhiqun plunged into technology research and development, and led the team to obtain nearly dozens of invention patents. Among them, Xu Zhiqun's "a slurry recycling method" was adopted by JinkoSolar and helped the company greatly reduce the cost of slurry recycling. Xu's years of dedication have been highly recognized by JinkoSolar's senior management and he was promoted to COO.
In 2020, Xu Zhiqun left JinkoSolar and quietly did one thing: planning to start a business. At that time, the IDG Capital team and Xu Zhiqun first met in a small restaurant in Zhejiang Province, and the two sides chatted for nearly four hours. A week later, with his understanding of the development trend of the industry, Xu Zhiqun met with IDG Capital again and officially decided to devote himself to entrepreneurship.
At that time, Zhuhai Huafa Group was making efforts to lay out new energy tracks, hoping to introduce photovoltaic companies to land in Zhuhai. Hit it off, Xu Zhiqun joined Gaojing Solar, co-founded by IDG Capital and Zhuhai Huafa Group, mainly engaged in the R&D and manufacturing of large-size silicon wafers and silicon rods. At that time, Xu Zhiqun was keenly aware that the entire industry would enter the era of N-type, large-size, thin-sliced silicon wafers, which had higher requirements for the production scale and technical threshold of silicon wafers. Therefore, Gaojing Solar focuses on the R&D and manufacturing of large-size photovoltaic silicon wafers, and breaks through and masters a number of core technologies in large-size and thinning.
Soon after the establishment of the company, Xu Zhiqun began to plan to purchase raw materials and build factories. Gaojing Solar frantically sweeps goods in the silicon market. In March 2021, Qinghai Gaojing Solar, a wholly-owned subsidiary, signed the "Strategic Cooperation and Purchase Agreement" with Xinte Energy Co., Ltd. and its two subsidiaries, according to the agreement, Xinte Energy will sell 152,400 tons of primary polysilicon to Qinghai Gaojing in four years, with a total agreement amount of about 21.944 billion yuan. In June 2021, under the guidance of IDG Capital, AIXU Solar purchased 35 million wafers from Gaojing Solar to help Gaojing Solar target downstream high-quality customers.
After preparing raw materials and locking in downstream customers, Gaojing Solar hurriedly put into production. At the opening ceremony of the Macao-Zhuhai Entrepreneur Summit, Zhuhai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and Gaojing Solar signed a cooperation agreement on the investment and landing of photovoltaic new energy projects, with a total investment of about 17 billion yuan. According to the agreement, Gaojing Solar's 50GW photovoltaic large silicon wafer project and sales center will land in Zhuhai.
With the support of the local governments in Zhuhai and Xining, the first phase of the 15GW crystal pulling project (Xining) and the slicing project (Zhuhai) of Gaojing Solar completed the whole process from start to production in only 93 days and 140 days respectively, constantly refreshing the speed of factory construction in the industry. It is reported that the daily production capacity of the first phase of the project has reached more than 4 million pieces, and the first batch of silicon wafer products put into trial production in the first phase have been widely welcomed by the market, when the order has locked in 70% of the production capacity in the next two years, and it is estimated that the output value will exceed 14 billion in 2022.
Another impressive scene is that in May 2022, Gaojing Solar signed a cooperation agreement with the Yibin Municipal People's Government and the Xuzhou District People's Government to invest in the construction of 50GW straight-pull monocrystalline silicon rod and 30GW monocrystalline silicon rod slice projects with an annual output of up to 22 billion yuan. Construction officially started in September of that year, and production was put into operation three months later.
In this way, in the photovoltaic rivers and lakes surrounded by giants such as LONGi Green Energy and Zhonghuan Co., Ltd., Gaojing Solar has sprung up and become a phenomenal unicorn company in Zhuhai, and now it has begun to IPO.
With a valuation of 20 billion, how to support an IPO?
Only four years after its establishment, the speed of Gaojing Solar's rise is amazing.
According to the prospectus, Gaojing Solar was established in 2019, and its main business is the research and development, production and sales of photovoltaic monocrystalline silicon rods and monocrystalline silicon wafers, and its main products include 182mm, 210mm and other large-size monocrystalline silicon rods and monocrystalline silicon wafers. The main work of Gaojing Solar is to purchase raw materials such as polysilicon materials, which can be processed into monocrystalline silicon rods after multiple crystal pulling steps such as melting, long-crystal, and truncation, and then complete the manufacturing of silicon wafer products through a series of continuous production steps such as sticky rods, slicing, and cleaning, and achieve profitability by selling products to downstream photovoltaic customers.
At present, Gaojing Solar has three production bases: Zhuhai Jinwan monocrystalline silicon wafers, Qinghai Xining monocrystalline silicon rods, Sichuan Yibin monocrystalline silicon rods and monocrystalline silicon wafers. At the end of 2022, the company has successfully reached the full production capacity of 30GW in the first and second phases of Zhuhai, and the 30GW production capacity in the first and second phases of Qinghai.
Benefiting from the rapid growth of monocrystalline silicon wafer market demand, the production capacity of Gaojing Solar can be quickly converted into orders. According to the prospectus, Gaojing Solar has signed long-term supply agreements with leading solar cell manufacturers in the industry, including Tongwei Co., Ltd., Runyang Co., Ltd., Zhongrun Solar Energy, Junda Co., Ltd., Yiyi New Energy, Chint Group, etc., and established a good and stable cooperative relationship. Up to now, the long-term sales orders of silicon wafers signed and implemented by Gaojing Solar from January 2023 to December 2025 totaling about 25.904 billion wafers, providing a strong guarantee for the company's capacity digestion and profit level improvement.
This is reflected in the financial data - from 2020 to 2022, the revenue of Gaojing Solar was 89,100 yuan, 2.491 billion yuan and 17.570 billion yuan, respectively, with a compound growth rate of more than 100%; The net profit was -1.13 million yuan, 108 million yuan and 1.821 billion yuan respectively.
Whether from the perspective of financial data or the pace of listing, Gaojing Solar is one of the fastest progressing enterprises. As a typical case cultivated by investment institutions, local governments and industrial veterans, Gaojing Solar has its own halo, and it is natural that there is a strong support from a number of investors.
Emerging from the scene, Gaojing Solar quickly attracted the attention of a group of investors.
In April 2022, Gaojing Solar announced the completion of a series A financing of 1.6 billion yuan. In addition to the old shareholders IDG Capital and Zhuhai Huafa Group continuing to increase additional investment, China Life Investment's China Life Science and Technology Innovation Fund, CCB (Pilot New Fund, Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading Fund), Guangdong Finance Fund (Guangdong Industrial Development Fund), Shenzhen Investment Control Capital and other financial investment institutions, iXu, Midea Capital and other industrial investment institutions jointly participated.
After half a year, Gaojing Solar completed another 2.515 billion yuan Series B financing, with a spectacular lineup - CICC Capital, Xinte Energy, CITIC Jinshi, Haitong Kaiyuan, Guangdong Yueke, Walden International, China Minci and other well-known investment institutions and industrial investors participated in this round of investment. At that time, the valuation of Gaojing Solar reached 20 billion.
However, the photovoltaic track where Gaojing Solar is located is in a high-speed development stage, and the high-margin, low-threshold silicon wafer link has attracted more players. With the expansion of industry production capacity and technological progress, the price of photovoltaic products has gradually decreased, and photovoltaic companies have launched fierce competition in product performance, cost control, and technical routes.
Just as at present, the photovoltaic industry is experiencing fierce price competition and crazy involution, and the two photovoltaic leaders of LONGi Green Energy and TCL Central have successively reduced the price of silicon wafers. As a new photovoltaic force, whether Gaojing Solar can withstand this wave of industry turmoil still needs time to prove.
Investors crowded the PV exhibition
This is where IPOs explode
Behind Gaojing Solar, photovoltaic rivers and lakes are staging a listing feast.
On May 9 this year, the IPO of Huayao Optoelectronics Growth Enterprise Market was accepted. In 2019, Xun Jianhua, the founder of "the first A-share photovoltaic" EGing Optoelectronics, chose to start a new business after giving up control and founded Huayao Optoelectronics, with his son Xun Yao as the chairman. In December 2022, Huayao Optoelectronics completed a pre-IPO round of financing of nearly 400 million yuan, with a valuation of 7 billion yuan in one fell swoop.
A week later, Zhongrun Solar plans to go public on the ChiNext and is expected to raise 4 billion yuan. The world's fourth-largest photovoltaic cell manufacturer is backed by a post-70s couple: Long Daqiang and Meng Liye. In 2011, they jointly funded the establishment of the company's predecessor, Zhongrun Limited, which cooperated closely with leading module manufacturers such as JinkoSolar, JA Technology, Trina Solar and Canadian Solar. According to the amount of funds raised, the company's valuation reached 40 billion, which should not be underestimated.
Canadian Solar is equally menacing. On May 22, Canadian Solar made its initial public offering and listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board with a letter of intent. This is the first photovoltaic integrated industry in China to land on NASDAQ in the United States, and now it is about to land on A-shares after twists and turns. The founder, Qu Xiaohua, graduated from Tsinghua in 1986 and then went to Canada to study. In 2001, he founded Canadian Solar, and after several breakthroughs, led Canadian Solar to become one of the "Big Five" of photovoltaic modules.
This list of PV IPOs is constantly increasing: Zerun New Energy, Xiangbang Technology, Xin Hongye... It's hard to imagine that all this happened in just May. If the timeline is extended, since the beginning of 2023, nearly 20 photovoltaic companies have rushed to IPO, including Trina Solar, Yongzhen Technology, Baijia Era, etc., with a total amount of more than 60 billion yuan, covering various segments of photovoltaics.
At this point, one by one PV IPOs lined up.
Why photovoltaics?
The most important background here is the dual-carbon era. As you can see, China's new energy has become one of the hottest industries. The mainland has put forward the "dual carbon" goal, specifying that the total installed capacity of wind power and solar power generation will reach more than 1.2 billion kilowatts by 2030, which puts forward new tasks and requirements for the development of renewable energy. Photovoltaics, on the other hand, offer incomparable advantages: unlimited resources, extremely low costs, and environmental friendliness. Photovoltaic power generation is expected to become the most economical form of electricity, and it has the most possibility of entering thousands of households.
In fact, China's photovoltaic industry has been developing for a long time. In 2018, an important turning point: the cancellation of subsidies, the mainland gradually moved towards the era of photovoltaic parity on the Internet. In the eyes of investors, the "subsidy cancellation" shows that the economy of the industry has been established, and China's photovoltaic industry has entered a new era.
According to relevant research reports, photovoltaic power generation will account for the lowest proportion of 30% to 40% of primary energy in the context of carbon neutrality in the future, and the highest proportion can reach 60% to 70%, which is one of the highest proportion of energy in the future.
This is also why the primary market is now almost crazy for photovoltaic startups. In the past SNEC 16th (2023) International Solar Photovoltaic and Smart Energy (Shanghai) Conference & Exhibition, 500,000 people registered to visit the exhibition, which was spectacular. Among them, a number of VC/PE investors at home and abroad came to the scene and crowded the photovoltaic exhibition. Even investors can't help but complain that the recent photovoltaic exhibition is the most jammed traffic.
However, it is necessary to be vigilant that the photovoltaic industry is seriously involved, and the situation of phased overcapacity and industry reshuffle is not far away. It remains to be seen what such a lively scene will leave us in the end.