3 years of listing lost 3 billion, 6 original shareholders "liquidated" to cash out 6 billion, 50 billion "AI chip giant" chairman anxious: I promise, do not reduce holdings!
Since its establishment 6 and a half years ago, the "AI chip giant" Cambrian has continued to lose net money every year.
Recently, Cambrian (SH688256) announced that shareholder SDIC Venture Fund reduced its holdings of 7398690 shares, with a reduction ratio of 1.7760%, and the source of shares was obtained before IPO, with a total amount of about 1.482 billion yuan. After the reduction, the shareholding ratio of SDIC Venture Capital fell to 0.0003%, which means that the shareholder has almost "liquidated" Cambrian.
In the context of the hot speculation of AI concepts, a group of investors who invested in Cambrian, the "first stock of AI chips", took advantage of the sharp rise in stock prices in the first half of 2023 and liquidated all their stocks. According to the company's prospectus and previous reduction announcements, from August 2016 to September 2019, six funds invested a total of 2.82 billion yuan in Cambrian to become original shareholders, and as of the above cash-out exit, these shareholders have cashed out a total of 6.6 billion yuan.
On September 26, Cambrian urgently announced that Dr. Chen Tianshi, the actual controller, chairman and general manager of the company, voluntarily promised that the shares of the company (119,530,650 shares) directly held by me will not be reduced in any way from the date of the commitment letter to December 31, 2024, including the new shares generated by the conversion of capital reserve, the distribution of stock dividends, allotments, additional issuance, etc. during the commitment period.
As of the noon close on the 26th, Cambrian closed at 131.29 yuan, up 4.09%, with a total market value of 54.695 billion yuan. It is worth noting that Cambrian has fallen all the way since hitting a high of 271 yuan on April 21 this year, and has been "cut back" in only 5 months.
Venture capital shareholders cashed out more than 6 billion
On the evening of September 22, Cambrian announced that it had received the "Notification Letter on the Expiration of the Reduction Plan and the Results of the Reduction" issued by the shareholder SDIC Venture Fund, and SDIC Venture Capital reduced its holdings by 7398690 shares, with a reduction ratio of 1.7760%, the source of shares was obtained before the IPO, and the reduction methods included concentrated bidding transactions and block transactions, with a total amount of about 1.482 billion yuan.
At present, SDIC Venture Capital only holds 1176 shares of the company, and its shareholding ratio has dropped to 0.0003%, which means that the shareholder has almost "liquidated" Cambrian.
Previously, on the evening of August 25, Cambrian disclosed that it received the "Notification Letter on the Completion of the Share Reduction Plan and the Results of the Reduction" issued by shareholder Paleozoic Venture Capital, and Paleozoic Venture Capital reduced its holdings by 5975376 shares, with a reduction ratio of 1.4343%, and the source of shares was obtained before the IPO, with a total reduction of about 1.072 billion yuan.
After the completion of the reduction, the number of shares held by Paleozoic Venture Capital dropped to 0 shares, and the Cambrian was officially "liquidated".
On the evening of June 8, Cambrian disclosed that it received the "Notification Letter on the Completion of the Reduction Plan and the Results of the Reduction" issued by shareholders Nanjing Zhaoyin and Hubei Zhaoyin, Nanjing CMB reduced its holdings of 3114627 shares, with a reduction ratio of 0.78%, with a total amount of 388 million yuan; Hubei Zhaoyin reduced its holdings of 1539549 shares, a reduction ratio of 0.38%, and a total amount of 191 million yuan. The source of shares held by the two major shareholders was acquired before the IPO.
The controlling shareholder of the general partner and executive partner of Nanjing CMB and Hubei CMB is CMB International Capital Management (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. At present, the number of shares held by Nanjing Zhaoyin and Hubei Zhaoyin is 0 shares, and they have also "cleared" Cambrian.
The total cash out of the above four venture capital shareholders reached 3.133 billion yuan in this round.
According to preliminary combing, since the shares acquired before Cambrian's IPO were listed and circulated on July 20, 2021, major institutions have begun to reduce their holdings.
On July 22, July 29 and September 17, 2021, Cambrian's venture capital shareholders Paleozoic Venture Capital, Zhike Shengxun, Ningbo Hangao, SDIC Venture Fund, Nanjing Zhaoyin and Hubei Zhaoyin successively threw out plans to reduce their holdings.
In this round of reduction, Paleozoic Venture Capital and Zhike Shengxun (the two form a concerted action relationship) cashed out 381 million yuan and 329 million yuan respectively, Ningbo Hangao cashed out 595 million yuan, Nanjing Zhaoyin and Hubei Zhaoyin cashed out 173 million yuan and 88 million yuan respectively. A total of RMB1.566 billion was cashed out. After the completion of this round of reduction, Zhike Shengxun became the first original shareholder to clear the position.
Subsequently, in another round of reduction in 2022, Nanjing CMB and Hubei CMB cashed out 217 million yuan and 109 million yuan respectively, while Ningbo Hangao cashed out 129 million yuan. A total of $455 million was cashed out.
Time to 2023, Cambrian stepped into the concept of AI, ChatGPT and other concepts, the stock price rose from less than 70 yuan to a high of 270 yuan, and venture capital shareholders also stepped up the pace of reducing their holdings.
In February 2023, Nanjing CMB and Hubei Zhaoyin cashed out RMB281 million and RMB141 million respectively, while in mid-March, Paleozoic Venture Capital, Ningbo Hangao and SDIC Venture Capital cashed out RMB361 million, RMB225 million and RMB467 million respectively. A total of RMB1.475 billion was cashed out. It can be seen that after this reduction, Ningbo Hangao's shareholding has reached 0.
From early June to the end of September, Cambrian's above-mentioned venture capital shareholders swung their last knife and liquidated their holdings. Based on this calculation, the cumulative cash arbitrage of venture capital shareholders since July 20, 2021 reached 6.629 billion yuan.
It lost more than 3 billion yuan in 3 years of listing
The departure of the six original shareholders has brought more uncertainty to Cambrian's future. After going public in July 2020, the company raised 4.254 billion yuan through IPO and initial directional offering, but has not yet invested the funds.
According to the data, Cambrian is registered in Haidian District, Beijing, and its main business is the research and development, design and sales of artificial intelligence core chips in various cloud servers, edge computing devices and terminal equipment, and the main products are cloud intelligent chips and accelerator cards, training machines, edge intelligent chips and accelerator cards, terminal intelligent processor IP and supporting software development platforms for the above products. The actual controller of the company is Chen Tianshi.
Cambrian is engaged in chip design, and unlike thousands of entrepreneurial peers, the company has chosen to go in the direction of difficult, highly profitable AI chips. Well-known companies in this field are NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, etc., in addition to many star startups.
Although it continued to be favored by many early investors in the early stage of its business, the company still chose to go public, and in this highly competitive track, it seems that IPOs can meet its characteristics of large financing and continuous "burning money".
The competition for AI chips is fierce, what is the business situation of Cambrian in 2023? The company previously announced in July that it formed a consortium with China Mobile Zhejiang Taizhou Branch and Zhejiang Public Information Industry Co., Ltd. to participate in the bidding for the digital infrastructure improvement project (phase I) of the Southeast Zhejiang Digital Economy Industrial Park and won the bid. This means that Cambrian will deliver hardware goods worth 530 million yuan.
In the first half of 2023, Cambrian handed over its worst half-year report since listing. During the reporting period, the company's operating income was 114 million yuan, down 33.37% year-on-year, the net profit loss attributable to the parent was 544 million yuan, and the net profit loss attributable to the parent after deduction was 640 million yuan, which was 15.39% larger than the loss value in the same period last year.
In the three full fiscal years after listing, from 2020 to 2022, Cambrian's net profit attributable to non-attributable parent was 659 million yuan, 1.11 billion yuan and 1.58 billion yuan, respectively, reaching a total of 3.35 billion yuan.
In addition, from 2017 to 2019, Cambrian also lost 381 million yuan, 41 million yuan and 1.179 billion yuan, respectively.
For the large losses in successive years, Cambrian has repeatedly mentioned R&D investment. Wind data shows that between 2017 and 2022 and the first half of 2023, Cambrian's R&D expenditure accumulated more than 4.5 billion yuan. In the first half of 2023, Cambrian's R&D investment accounted for 421.56%.
In response to the continuous decline in Cambrian's revenue, there were rumors in the market during the year that the company shut down its automotive business and laid off employees. According to media reports on the 24th, the reporter asked a number of semiconductor industry insiders for verification, and the reply was: Cambrian's business, personnel reduction and external constraints, or related to its own strategic development.
According to the financial report, as of the end of the second quarter of 2023, Cambrian's R&D personnel were 980, and the total salary of R&D personnel was 305 million yuan. In the same period of 2022, the company's two data were 1,207 and 373 million yuan, respectively, down 18.8% and 18.23% year-on-year, of which R&D personnel accounted for 80.04% of the total number of employees.
Editor|Duan Lian Du Bo
Proofreading | He Xiaotao
Daily economic news is synthesized from CBN, 21st Century Business Herald, listed company announcements, public information, etc
Daily economic news