Source | Yunlian Think Tank (ID: tucmedia)
Author | Cao Li
Edit | Small L
With the submission of a prospectus by Shanghai Shengsheng Pharmaceutical Cold Chain Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shengsheng Cold Chain") on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the "investor Tiantuan" behind it was also exposed.
According to the prospectus, Shengsheng Cold Chain intends to raise 900 million yuan this time, accounting for no less than 15% of the total share capital after issuance. Based on this calculation, the valuation of the issue is about 6 billion yuan.
Behind this financing, an investment institution with a logistics background is not only a shareholder of Bioflow, but also invested in two rounds, which can be described as making a lot of money.
Next, let's take a look at this investment institution with a "logistics background".
1. Deppon Foundation: low-key Deppon investment
Looking at the "Investor Tiantuan" of the Shengsheng cold chain, in addition to Zhongding Capital, which has been focusing on "logistics supply chain + ecosystem" and is regarded as the "king of logistics investment" in China, the most closely related to the logistics industry is "Debang Foundation".
According to the prospectus, the full name of Deppon Foundation is Ningbo Debang Foundation Investment Management Co., Ltd. According to enterprise investigation data, Deppon Foundation was established on December 2, 2014, and is an investment and asset management subsidiary wholly-owned by Deppon Logistics.
Since its establishment, Debangji has invested in the enterprises in addition to Shengsheng cold chain, including Shanghai Energy Logistics Logistics, Mingtong Equipment Technology, Chengdu Zonglian Exhibition Logistics, Shandong Zhongyi Lebang Logistics, Shanghai Carpenter Robot, Shanghai Shell Supply Chain, Yidai Storage, etc.
From the perspective of Deppon Foundation's foreign investment projects, the enterprises it has invested in are basically around logistics.
For example, in the early days of its establishment, in the first half of 2015, Deppon Foundation invested in Northeast Asia Coal Exchange Co., Ltd., China's first coal supply chain service platform; In 2018, it jointly invested with Zhongding Capital in the automotive logistics enterprise Energy Logistics, with a capital scale of more than 100 million yuan; From 2020 to 2021, participate in two strategic financings of carpenter Robot, a well-known domestic unmanned forklift robot company...
Shengsheng Cold Chain is established by its predecessor, "Shengsheng Limited" (Shengsheng Supply Chain Management (Ningbo) Co., Ltd.), which was established on August 7, 2017. During this period, Deppon Foundation participated in two equity changes of "Shengsheng Limited".
In June 2020, Deppon Foundation acquired 1% of the equity of Shengsheng Limited held by Liu Siqin (one of the founding shareholders of Shengsheng Limited) for 6.65 million yuan; During the same period, Deppon Foundation subscribed for 28 million yuan and added a registered capital of 286,664 yuan to Shengsheng Limited. After the completion of the first equity transfer and capital increase, Deppon Foundation holds a limited 8.76% equity interest in Shengsheng.
At that time, the valuation of Shengsheng Limited was about 700 million yuan.
In November 2020, Shengsheng Limited carried out the second capital increase and the second equity transfer. During this period, Deppon Foundation transferred its 2% equity interest in Shengsheng Limited to Hillhouse Minheng for 32 million yuan. After the completion of the second capital increase and equity transfer, Deppon Foundation holds 5.8465% of the equity of Shengsheng Limited.
Since then, until Shengsheng Limited changed the overall change to establish a joint-stock company, with several capital increases and equity transfers, the final shareholding of Deppon Foundation also changed.
As of the disclosure date of the prospectus, Deppon Foundation held a total of 19,159,576 shares of Shengsheng Cold Chain, with a shareholding ratio of 5.6352%.
From the first equity transfer and capital increase to now, the valuation of Shengsheng cold chain has increased by nearly 7.57 times in 3 years. This is a very considerable investment income for Deppon Foundation.
However, Deppon has been criticized by the Shanghai Stock Exchange for the "investment business" of the cold chain, and the relevant responsible persons have also been disciplined.
According to the news, on May 9 this year, Deppon received a disciplinary decision issued by the Shanghai Stock Exchange due to inaccurate financial data. According to the announcement, the financial data disclosed in the 2019, 2020, 2021 annual reports and 2022 third quarter reports of Deppon Co., Ltd. are inaccurate.
SSE believes that Deppon failed to make prudent and reasonable predictions, adjusted the financial data of relevant periodic reports without changes in accounting policies and objective circumstances, resulting in major changes in the main financial indicators of consecutive periodic reports, and the facts of the violation were clear.
It is listed that the fair value of Deppon's investment enterprises Fuyou Truck, Incept Technology, Shengsheng Cold Chain, China Eastern Airlines Logistics, etc. has changed significantly, and the amount of relevant statement items needs to be adjusted; The company should present deferred tax assets and deferred tax liabilities on a net basis, and there are errors in the relevant statement items.
To the effect that some of the companies invested by Deppon have an investment premium. Normally, Deppon, as a shareholder, should have a negative book profit; However, Deppon did not make adjustments in time, and there was suspicion of inflating or falsely reporting investment profits.
In the eyes of industry professionals, Deppon's wave of operations can be explained by its insistent financial conservative strategy. For example, investing in a company with the type of cold chain has skyrocketed its valuation, and Deppon has not reflected it in its financial report in time.
However, we can also see the investment ability of Deppon investment entities composed of Deppon Foundation Industry.
2. War Investment Department: the "banknote" capability institution of the enterprise
For the leading logistics enterprises that have completed the early capital accumulation in China, in order to expand their business territory and maximize their interests, logistics enterprises that have grown to a certain stage will set up war investment departments.
In general, the war investment department of the enterprise is mainly responsible for external investment. Strategic investments usually require large amounts of funds, have a longer payback period, and are accompanied by greater investment risk. Funds generally come from within the enterprise, and there is no requirement for the proportion of investment, from 100% (mergers and acquisitions) to general financial investment ratio.
The War Investment Department generally divides the following responsibilities: strategic research, strategic planning, strategy implementation and tracking, and strategic investment. In addition, it will also lead and coordinate some important projects according to the company's strategic orientation, or expand some innovative businesses closely related to the company's development.
1) Strategic research
The war investment department usually does some analysis of policies, market dynamics and benchmarking enterprises related to the company's industry. Always pay attention to current affairs, refer to the experience of peers, pay attention to the latest market models, technologies, listing trends and the development actions of leading enterprises, etc., steer the rudder for the development of their own enterprises, and support regular strategic planning work.
2) Strategic planning
Based on the basis of strategic research, combined with the decision-making of the company's leadership and the needs and current feedback of various business departments, through a large number of interviews, research, or the introduction of external third-party strategic consulting companies, the whole level of coordination to jointly sort out the company's overall strategic development plan, including strategic development goals, business planning, functional planning.
Based on the direction and overall goals determined by the strategic plan, it is further disassembled into several major business/management priorities of the year, clarifying the business and functional departments involved, and promoting the key work that each department needs to undertake from its own point of view, the department-level goals to be achieved and the specific implementation path, and then collating and summarizing the annual business plan and KPI indicators of each department.
3) Strategy implementation
Based on the implementation path, business plan and key tasks determined by the strategy decoding, promote the implementation of each department, and conduct regular progress tracking, supervision and evaluation. In view of the problems that may be encountered by various departments in the implementation process, communicate and coordinate to solve them. In many cases, in the process of implementing specific tasks, the Strategic Management Department plays more of a role in direction guidance and organizational coordination. Generally, in every quarter/semi-yearly/yearly, the strategy department will organize a strategic analysis meeting to report on the implementation, existing problems, and the next work arrangement, and conduct special analysis for possible difficult problems in the process.
4) Strategic investment
Generally speaking, strategic investment is relatively independent and a more professional division of labor. It is often based on the overall direction of the company's strategic planning, focusing on the direction of the company's investment layout, conducting relevant industry research and market research, and sourcing investment projects with the help of various cooperation channels, and then promoting the implementation of projects, and regularly tracking and managing projects after investment.
In addition, specific to the development of important projects of the company and the development of some innovative businesses, generally in the process of the company's overall operation and development, according to the development of the market and business and the focus of the leadership, the strategy department to promote the implementation of such projects, similarly, more also play the role of direction guidance and organizational coordination.
In general, the war investment department is the company's strategic driver and think tank, and the company's high-level "military master" helps the leaders check the future direction of the company.
An industry analyst said that business operation is actually a process of turning capital into means of production, and then transforming means of production into more funds. In the past, most enterprises paid more attention to the second half, but with the growth of enterprise scale and the intensification of market competition, how to effectively exert the cash flow advantages of enterprises has become the reason why enterprise leaders attach importance to the war investment department.
Basically all the major Internet companies in China have war investment departments, from BAT (Baidu, Ali, Tencent) to TMD (Toutiao, Meituan, Didi) and so on. In addition to Debang, the representative enterprises of the logistics track include SF Holding, Jingdong Group, Ali Fund, Manbang Group, Transfar Group, G7 Yiliu, ZTO Express, Yunda Holdings and so on.
Among them, SF's representative investment projects include SF City, Fengchao, Fengyi Technology, SF DHL Supply Chain China, Xinxiahui, Kerry Logistics, Xinbang Logistics, Jitu Express, Restaurant Beidou, CP Futong, IoT Yida, Qianhang Technology, etc.
JD.com's representative investment projects include Bitcar, Yixin, Tuniu, Yonghui Supermarket, Fuyou Truck, Dada Group, Aihuishou, China Unicom, China Railway Special Goods, Wanda Commercial, Vipshop, etc.
Alibaba's representative investment projects include Cainiao Network, Ele.me, Dian Me, "Three Links and One Reach", Best Group, 58 Home, Huitongda, Express Express, Fast Dog Taxi, etc.
3. New trend of logistics war investment: focus on the main business while exploring new business
Looking at the investment trend of the war investment department of these leading logistics enterprises, its characteristics are also very obvious, that is, the layout around their main business is highly related to the operating conditions of their business.
If JD.com Group insists on self-built logistics in the field, it will make a lot of investment and acquisition operations around logistics real estate.
In May 2018, JD.com invested HK$900 million in China's logistics assets; During the same period, it invested USD 306 million in ESR, a logistics real estate operator. Among its huge real estate layout, JD.com, which submitted its listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange some time ago, is JD.com's core role in the real estate field.
SF is committed to building a smart supply chain ecosystem in the digital era, becoming a leader in smart supply chain, and actively creating sustainable supply chain services. Its investment territory covers logistics and transportation, e-commerce, network technology, enterprise management, etc. For example, it invested in Harvest Nest Technology in 2015, acquired 100% equity of DHL Hong Kong and DHL Beijing in 2018, invested in Xinxiahui in the field of cold chain logistics, and acquired Kerry Logistics in 2022 to support cross-border logistics.
Manbang is committed to building the world's largest intelligent logistics ecological platform, and its core business includes rear vehicle, intelligent driving, logistics informatization, etc., so the enterprises invested include after-vehicle service network systems, such as investing in the aftermarket spare parts supply chain platform A, B and C in 2018; In the same year, it also invested in Plus.com in the field of autonomous driving; TruckPad, a vehicle-cargo matching platform; In 2021, it invested in the heavy equipment transportation service platform Special Express.
From the perspective of the investment trend of various leading logistics enterprises, Li Zhongxin, executive director of Yunlian Research Institute, said that in the past, the field invested by the war investment department of these leading logistics enterprises was relatively scattered and open, and in recent years, it has been more focused, and the investment is more cautious than before, and it is more related to their main business.
In the past few years, these leading logistics enterprises have not only completed the connection of the basic layout, but also relied on the power of capital to continuously expand horizontally and vertically to further consolidate the city.
In the past three years, under the background of the shortage of market funds becoming a consensus, although the investment enthusiasm in the logistics field has shown a downward trend, they have spent money on the "tip of the knife", in addition to focusing more on their own business, they also focus on foreign investment in various aspects to explore new business directions and identify new changes in market competition.
These actions can also help us better understand the future development direction of the enterprise.
From the perspective of the overall investment trend, even in the current economic downturn and capital winter, the basic and strategic value of the logistics industry is still valued by capital for a long time. And in the end, who can laugh at the rivers and lakes, and who can break the sand?