The chairman of the board of directors of a 10-billion-dollar enterprise was criminally detained! Shareholders were miserably trapped
Produced by Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" studio
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"Enterprise development is not an imagination, it needs real money to be invested in it, and there will be corresponding returns", the chairman of the company with a market value of 10 billion yuan, who once talked to the media, became a prisoner overnight.
On the evening of December 5, Hengrun Co., Ltd. issued an announcement saying, "The company received a notice from the family of Chairman Cheng Lixin, who was criminally detained by the branch directly under the Changzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau on suspicion of insider trading." On the same day, the company learned that Zhang Yaya, general manager of Shanghai Runliuchi Technology Co., Ltd., a holding subsidiary, was assisting the investigation of the branch directly under the Changzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau.
This news made many shareholders feel remorseful. On the morning of the same day, there was a "small essay" that read: "The operator of Shanghai Runliuchi Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Runliuchi), a holding subsidiary of Hengrun Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Runliuchi), was controlled by the regulatory authorities on suspicion of committing a crime." This made Hengrun shares close the fall limit in early trading, and once became the only falling limit stock in the two cities.
The announcement directly made the shareholders collectively confused: "There is no opportunity for the shareholders to retreat!" On December 6, the market opened, and Hengrun shares fell into a one-word deadlock again, with an amount of more than 900 million yuan. As of press time, Hengrun's market value has fallen to 13.433 billion, falling more than 30 small targets in just two days.
However, for the specific reasons for the criminal detention and investigation of the two people, the staff of Hengrun Securities Department told the Phoenix Network "Eye of the Storm", "We are not clear, and the information obtained is very limited.
Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" combed through public information and found that Hengrun Co., Ltd. is engaged in the research and development, production and sales of rolling ring forgings, forged flanges and other free forgings and other products, and the products are used in the wind power industry, petrochemical industry and other industries, but the stock price of the computing power business has doubled, but the computing power business, which has made the stock price rise sharply, accounts for only 0.11% of the company's total revenue.
01 Cashed out 480 million yuan
Cheng Lixin, who was detained, continued to sell Hengrun's shares.
In July this year, Cheng Lixin sold 24,952,563 shares of the company's unrestricted tradable shares, cashing out 483 million yuan, reducing his proportion of shares in the company from 22.66% to 17%.
This is not the first time that Chenglixin has reduced its stake in the company on a large scale. Most bosses have an obsession with the control of the company. For example, Liu Qiangdong once said: "If I can't control JD.com, I'd rather sell it", but Cheng Lixin is an exception, he directly sold himself from the first controlling shareholder to the second largest shareholder.
According to the prospectus released by Hengrun before, when Hengrun was established in 2003, Chenglixin had 80.00% of the equity. Even when it went public in 2015, he still held a 48% stake in Hengrun.
However, in January 2021, he transferred the actual control of Hengrun to Jining City Investment.
According to the agreement, Jining Urban Investment held 28.46% of Hengrun's shares through equity transfer and cash subscription of non-public shares, while Cheng Lixin reduced its stake in the company to 22.31%, becoming the company's second largest shareholder.
"As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jining State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Jining Urban Investment has been deeply engaged in infrastructure construction and operation services for many years, which can introduce more strategic and business resources for Hengrun Co., Ltd., and at the same time provide sufficient financial support for it to achieve leapfrog development," Cheng Lixin said at that time.
Jining City Investment said that after becoming the controlling shareholder of the company, it will not interfere with the normal operation of the company, and supports Cheng Lixin to continue to serve as the company's director and general manager for at least three years in the future, responsible for the company's operation and management.
However, the three-year period has not yet passed, and on February 22, 2023, Hengrun Co., Ltd. issued an announcement that Cheng Lixin resigned from the position of general manager of the company and continued to serve as the chairman of the company after his resignation.
02 Soaring computing power concept stocks
10 days after Chairman Cheng Lixin announced the reduction, Hengrun Co., Ltd. announced a major decision, and Shanghai Liuchi jointly invested 100 million yuan to establish Shanghai Run Liuchi, Hengrun Co., Ltd. holds 51% of the equity, plans to establish computing centers in Shanghai, Fuzhou Economic Development Zone, Wuhu, Anhui, Jining, Shandong and other places, and build the Yangtze River Delta GPU computing center cluster.
From the "metaverse" to the "AI model", the digital economy has been integrated into daily life. In the era of AI, computing power can be called the lithium mine of new energy vehicles. Since the beginning of this year, the concept of computing power has soared, and the AI computing power index has risen by nearly 70%, ranking at the top of the concept growth list.
Some irrelevant enterprises have also entered this field,Such as selling monosodium glutamate Lotus shares and the main lottery printing business Hongbo shares,Have also entered this market,Hengrun shares, which were originally precision machinery,Also trying to hold the banner of the concept of computing power.
Miraculously, just two months later, Runliuchi signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China Unicom Anhui Branch and China Mobile Anhui Branch Wuhu Branch. Among them, the investment scale of the cooperation project with China Unicom exceeded 8 billion yuan, and the investment scale of the Wuhu Cluster Intelligent Computing Center project jointly built with China Mobile and Xinhua III also reached 2 billion yuan, and the planned intelligent computing power scale exceeded 40,000P.
This made Hengrun shares a big hit in the second half of this year, rising nearly twice from mid-June to early November this year, and the increase was as high as 53.60% in October alone. Although from the perspective of operating performance, the company's operating income in the first three quarters of 2023 was 1.25 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.08%.
The bull has blown out, and the stock price has also risen, but the computing power business has not kept up with the pace. For example, the computing power of more than 40,000P, Hengrun shares later said that it was only the company's vision. At that time, some people ridiculed: "I am currently planning 100000000P computing power, everyone hurry up and invest money in me."
The revenue contributed by computing power is even more miserable. As of September 30, 2023, Shanghai Runliuchi generated operating income of 1.3217 million yuan, accounting for 0.11% of the company's total operating income.
Perhaps because of the fear that it would not be easy to explain to shareholders and regulators, Hengrun shares have repeatedly issued announcements saying: Run Liuchi was established on August 2, 2023, which has been established for a short time.
03 Insider trading is subject to a maximum penalty of 10 times
Ironically, the chairman of Hengrun Co., Ltd. was criminally detained on suspicion of insider trading, and the back foot had funds to accurately "escape" in advance. The coincidence is staggering, like a well-planned financial drama.
On December 5, the share price of Hengrun shares closed with a falling limit, with a turnover of 696 million yuan and a turnover rate of 4.64%. According to the data of the after-hours Dragon and Tiger List, the special seats for Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect bought 58.4019 million yuan, but the special seats for the two institutions sold a net of 61.204 million yuan.
The insider trading incident of Hengrun shares is only the tip of the iceberg. Also on December 5, Xingmin Zhitong and *ST and Keshi controller Zhao Feng were also formally filed by the CSRC on suspicion of insider trading.
In fact, in March 2020, a new version of the Securities Law came into effect, which significantly increased the cost of insider trading. Insiders or those who illegally obtain inside information who trade in violation of the rules face a range of penalties, including the disposal of illegal securities, confiscation of illegal gains, and possible fines of up to 10 times the illegal gains.
For those who have no illegal gains or whose illegal gains are less than 500,000 yuan, the fine amount will be between 500,000 yuan and 5 million yuan. In addition, if the entity engages in insider trading, the directly responsible supervisor and other relevant responsible personnel will be warned and may face a fine of 200,000 yuan to 2 million yuan. If a staff member of the securities regulatory authority of the State Council is involved, the punishment will be more severe.
In that year, the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued a rare 3.6 billion sky-high insider trading fine, confiscated 900 million yuan of illegal gains, and fined about 2.7 billion yuan three times.
According to data, in the first half of 2023, mainland securities regulators issued a total of 143 penalty decisions, including 30 insider trading (accounting for 21%). Among them, the Jiangsu Securities Regulatory Bureau issued the largest insider trading fine in the first half of the year, confiscated the illegal income of Zhou Lin's insider trading of "Jiangnan Water" stocks, and imposed a fine of twice as much, with a total fine of about 28 million yuan!
Last month, Yang Rong, executive director of Tus-Qingyuan (Shanghai) New Material Technology Co., Ltd., was also fined by the Zhejiang Securities Regulatory Bureau, confiscated 35.2827 million yuan of illegal income, and was fined 35.2827 million yuan, with a total of 70.5654 million yuan in fines and confiscations.
The net has been tightened, and waiting for the new ones may be punished by the law.