Yangtze River Business Daily reporter Shen Yourong
An unusual move by Gao Jifan, the richest man in Changzhou, Jiangsu, has aroused great concern and suspicion in the market.
On March 20, Trina Solar (688599. SH) announced that Gao Jifan, the controlling shareholder and actual controller of the company, and his persons acting in concert transferred a total of 5% of the shares to Wu Chunyan.
Wu Chunyan is Gao Jifan's wife, and this transaction is a paid transfer, and the transfer price is as high as 2.275 billion yuan.
The paid transfer of 2.2 billion yuan touched the nerves of the market, will this be a disguised reduction?
Gao Jifan is also a legendary entrepreneur, he started from scratch and exceeded 10 billion sales in 13 years. In 2023, his personal wealth will reach 54.5 billion yuan.
Gao Jifan has always been striving to be the first. Since the release of the first 210 product in 2020, Trina Solar's cumulative shipments of 210 Extreme series modules have exceeded 100GW in three years, ranking first in the world.
In 2023, Trina Solar's operating revenue will exceed 100 billion yuan for the first time, becoming the third photovoltaic company with a revenue of more than 100 billion yuan after Tongwei and LONGi Green Energy.
However, Trina Solar was "voting with their feet" by investors. Since August 2022, the company's share price has continued to fall, and its current market value is less than 52 billion yuan, evaporating nearly 140 billion yuan from its peak.
It belongs to the myth of Gao Jifan
There is no shortage of legends in China's photovoltaic industry, and Gao Jifan is one of them.
Photovoltaic industry is frequent. Canadian Solar's Qu Xiaohua graduated from Tsinghua University, Growatt's Ding Yongqiang graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Wuxi Suntech Zhengrong received his Ph.D. from Martin Green, the father of global solar energy.
Compared with these top students, Gao Jifan is not inferior.
Born in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province in 1965, Gao Jifan studied polymer in the Department of Chemistry of Nanjing University from 1981 to 1985 and quantum chemistry at Jilin University from 1985 to 1988, under the supervision of Professor Tang Aoqing, the "father of quantum chemistry in China", and obtained a master's degree. After receiving a master's degree from Jilin University, Gao Jifan originally planned to study for a doctorate at the University of Berkeley in the United States, and if he followed this pace, he might become an excellent scientist.
Surprisingly, Gao Jifan gave up, and later said, "China has no shortage of scholars, what is lacking is entrepreneurs who turn knowledge into wealth."
Giving up his studies, Gao Jifan returned to his hometown of Changzhou and joined Changzhou Dongyi Joint Development Company, which had only been established for 2 months, to help people sell non-staple food and daily necessities.
Half a year later, he moved to a trading company in Changzhou for half a year, and then went south to Guangdong and worked in Shunde for two years.
In 1992, at the age of 27, Gao Jifan returned to Changzhou to start a real entrepreneurial journey and founded Wujin Xiehe Fine Chemical Factory. In 1995, Gao Jifan stumbled upon a business opportunity for fluorocarbon aluminum curtain walls, and borrowed 6 million yuan to introduce production lines from Japan and began large-scale production of aluminum panel curtain walls. What is surprising is that in 2000, Gao Jifan's company's annual sales exceeded 100 million yuan.
In 1997, Gao Jifan, who has a keen sense of smell, captured a new industrial trend - photovoltaics, and quickly founded Trina Solar. Gao Jifan's personality is vigorous and resolute, and he will work at full speed when he decides, and he will do it to the first.
In 1999, Trina Solar built China's first model building for integrated solar energy, which became a model for new energy development in Beijing's bid for the Olympic Games. In 2004, the company began to manufacture photovoltaic modules, with a production capacity of 10MW that year, and started a journey to Europe to go overseas. In 2017, Gao Jifan launched the "One Million Roofs" program, and in 2019, Trina Solar became one of the world's top five photovoltaic module companies.
In 2020, Trina Solar was listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and in that year, Gao Jifan was on the Forbes rich list, and in 2023, he ranked 295th on the Hurun Global Rich List with a wealth of 54.5 billion yuan.
Some people commented that Gao Jifan, who started from scratch and created the myth of sales exceeding 10 billion yuan in 13 years of entrepreneurship.
The first under the crazy expansion
Gao Jifan is also an entrepreneur who escaped the last round of photovoltaic tragedy.
According to legend, at the end of 2007, Gao Jifan was ready to invest in a 10,000-ton polysilicon project in Lianyungang, with a total investment of 1 billion US dollars, which is expected to be completed and put into operation before 2012. After the start of the project, Gao Jifan launched an investigation around the project and the direction of the same action, and fell from his chair in shock—the industry will have serious overcapacity, and he immediately decided to cancel the project.
With one foot on the brakes, Gao Jifan "saved his life".
Gao Jifan said, "Slow down, and the gold will be taken away by others." "From Trina Solar's large-scale expansion of production, we can get a glimpse of Gao Jifan's ambition and domineering.
In 2023, Trina Solar will take intensive actions: on April 19, the Huai'an Phase II 10GW cell + 10GW module project with an investment of 5 billion yuan started, on May 19, the 10GW cell + 10GW module project with an investment of about 3.1 billion yuan was signed in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, and only four days later, the 10GW high-efficiency cell+ project with an investment of about 2.5 billion yuan was signedOn May 29, the company announced that it plans to build a production base with an annual output of 25GW monocrystalline rods and supporting projects in Sichuan, with a total investment of about 10.7 billion yuan, and on August 25, the 20GW photovoltaic cell module project in Dongtai, Yancheng started, and on October 19, the company announced that it plans to invest in the construction of 50,000 tons of silicon material + 30GW silicon wafers + 5GW cell modules in the United Arab Emirates.
In addition, on August 1, 2023, Trina Solar's Qinghai base rolled off the production line with an annual production capacity of 5GW of N-type i-TOPCon cells, and on October 20, 2023, the Huai'an base rolled off the production line of 10GW of i-TOPCon cells in the second phase.
In 2023, enterprises in the photovoltaic industry have announced large-scale expansions, as if they will fall behind if they do not expand, and if they do not expand, they will not have the strength.
In view of the large-scale expansion of the industry, the media has repeatedly warned that it is necessary to be vigilant against overcapacity.
Gao Jifan also sees "overcapacity" as one of the three major challenges that the industry needs to face, but he still insists on expanding production. He said that overcapacity is old overcapacity, phased overcapacity, structural overcapacity, etc., and advanced capacity is not overcapacity.
According to the performance report, in 2023, Trina Solar's operating income will reach 113.510 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.46%, ranking among the 100 billion yuan camp for the first time, net profit will be 5.561 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 51.12%, and net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses will be 5.779 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 66.78%.
The company explained that the gradual release of self-produced N-type silicon wafer production capacity has further reduced the comprehensive cost of the company's module products, and the photovoltaic module business and fractional business have grown significantly.
In 2023, Trina Solar will ship 70GW of modules, ranking second only to JinkoSolar. According to the third quarter report of last year, Trina Solar's 210 module shipments continued to lead, ranking first in the world.
Awkward share price with strange transfers
Under Gao Jifan's all-out expansion, Trina Solar's operating performance has achieved rapid growth, but what is not matched is that Trina Solar's share price has been falling. Does this mean that Gao Jifan's expansion is not recognized by the market?
Since 2020, Trina Solar's operating income has increased from 29.418 billion yuan to 113.510 billion yuan, an increase of 285.89% in three years, and its net profit has increased from 1.229 billion yuan to 5.561 billion yuan, an increase of 352.48%.
In the secondary market, Trina Solar's stock price fluctuated sharply, stepping out of the "M" shaped K-line.
In May 2021, the company's share price was around 16 yuan/share, and in December of that year, it reached a maximum of 87.30 yuan/share, an increase of nearly 5 times. After a period of adjustment, on August 16, 2022, the stock price reached 88.33 yuan per share, returning to its peak. However, immediately afterwards, the stock price continued to decline, on February 5 this year, it fell to 20.33 yuan / share, and then rebounded slightly, on March 29, the closing price was 23.80 yuan / share.
At present, Trina Solar's market value is about 51.9 billion yuan, which is 139.6 billion yuan evaporated from its peak of 191.5 billion yuan.
The sharp drop in stock prices is related to the overall sluggish performance of the industry and the reduction of shareholder holdings. In March 2022, Gao Jifan, the actual controller of Trina Solar, and his concerted actors reduced their holdings of 10,202,740 convertible bonds, cashing out about 1.02 billion yuan.
External capital shareholders have reduced their holdings even more. From March to September 2022, IB Capital and its concerted actors reduced their holdings of Trina Solar by a total of 2.60%, cashing out about 3.413 billion yuan. From November 2022 to May this year, IB Capital cashed out about 3.195 billion yuan by reducing its holdings in Trina Solar.
What has attracted much attention is Gao Jifan's transfer of equity.
According to the announcement on March 21, Gao Jifan and his concerted actors transferred a total of 5% of Trina Solar's equity to his wife Wu Chunyan at a transfer price of 2.275 billion yuan.
The transfer, Trina Solar's announcement, said it was needed for family asset planning.
However, what the outside world is curious about is that since it is a family asset plan, why did Gao Jifan transfer the equity of the company he holds to his wife? The two sides also agreed on the payment method of the equity transfer price for a period of 48 months.
For this part of the equity, Wu Chunyan promised not to reduce her holdings within 8 months.
Trina Solar's secretary responded to the media that the internal equity transfer of the actual controller's family has nothing to do with the overseas transfer of assets.
As PV competition intensifies, what stories will Gao Jifan and Trina Solar have to tell?
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