The long-awaited IPO in the United States is back.
The investment community - Tiantian IPO learned that last night (May 10), ZEEKR Intelligent Technology Holdings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "ZEEKR") officially landed on the New York Stock Exchange. In this IPO, ZEEKR is priced at $21 per ADS, with a target valuation of $5.13 billion, which is more than 60% lower than the post-Series A valuation.
However, at the opening of the first day, the stock price of ZEEKR rose all the way, and once rose by more than 38% in the intraday. As of the close, the latest market value of ZEEKR was 6.898 billion US dollars (about 49.8 billion yuan).
A super IPO has risen in three years, and behind ZEEKR is the "car madman" - Li Shufu. Born in 1963 in rural Taizhou, Zhejiang, he led Geely to grow into an automotive giant in his early years, and in 2021, he founded the Zeekr brand to enter high-end electric vehicles.
There is no most volume, only more volume. ZEEKR has witnessed the extremely fierce competition of electric vehicles in China, and is also experiencing the historical scene of domestic electric vehicles going to sea.
From Ningbo
Li Shufu was born another super IPO
The soul of Extreme Krypton is undoubtedly Li Shufu.
In 2001, on the occasion of China's accession to the WTO, Geely Automobile, founded by Li Shufu, also became the first private enterprise in China to obtain the qualification of car production. Since then, Geely has been making great strides and was successfully listed in Hong Kong in 2005.
But Li Shufu's ambitions don't stop there. In 2010, he spent $1.8 billion to acquire Volvo, a veteran European car company, and successfully created a "snake swallowing an elephant" case. Subsequently, Geely began to transform into new energy vehicles, and in 2017, it established a joint venture with Volvo to establish Lynk & Co Auto, focusing on the high-end hybrid market. In the same year, Geely Holding acquired Malaysia's Proton Motors, British luxury sports car brand Lotus and American flying car company Terrafugia.
At the same time, ZEEKR, which is positioned as a high-end pure electric vehicle, also came into being. In March 2021, ZEEKR was jointly invested and established by Geely Automobile and Geely Holding Group in Ningbo. At the time of the establishment of the brand, An Conghui, CEO of ZEEKR, once said, "It is indeed difficult for an elephant to turn around, and the historical burden is also very heavy." Our transformation has disadvantages and advantages, we can use Geely Automobile's resources, and we also have traditional manufacturing experience, and we can get out of the third track. ”
Rooted in Ningbo, ZEEKR has accelerated the process of car manufacturing. In October 2021, ZEEKR delivered its first product, "ZEEKR 001", with a price of 299,000 to 386,000 yuan; Subsequently, an MPV model "ZEEKR 009" was launched, with a price of 499,000 yuan to 588,000 yuan; In April last year, the compact SUV "ZEEKR X" was officially launched, with a price starting at 189,800 yuan, and in November of the same year, ZEEKR released its first pure electric luxury sedan "ZEEKR 007", and deliveries began in January this year.
But the listing process of ZEEKR can be described as twists and turns. In December 2022, Geely Automobile announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that ZEEKR had submitted a draft registration statement for a possible IPO to the SEC on a confidential basis on December 7. At the time, it was reported that Zeekr was also considering Hong Kong as a listing location, but chose New York in the hope of obtaining a higher valuation.
But soon, ZEEKR temporarily shelved its plan to go public in the United States. Until the beginning of this year, ZEEKR restarted its plan again, but the IPO fundraising scale was adjusted from the previous expectation of $1 billion to $500 million, and the total amount raised was finally determined to be $441 million.
Three years after its establishment, ZEEKR has set a record for the fastest IPO time for a new car-making force, and Li Shufu has also successfully won another super IPO.
More than 200,000 vehicles were sold, starting at 180,000 yuan
Valuations have shrunk
Why did ZEEKR become the fastest car-making IPO?
As the saying goes, "look at the product in the early stage, look at the mass production in the long term", the mass production and delivery performance of a car company is the most powerful proof of competitiveness. According to the prospectus, as of December 31, 2023, since the delivery of the first ZEEKR model in October 2021, ZEEKR has delivered a total of 196633 ZEEKR vehicles, of which 192441 have been delivered in China. In the four months from January to April this year, the delivery volume of ZEEKR has approached 50,000 units.
Among them, ZEEKR 001 can be called the representative work of ZEEKR. ZEEKR 001 achieved a total delivery of 10,000 units in less than four months after its first delivery, which is one of the fastest delivery models among China's major mid-to-high-end new energy vehicles and high-end pure electric vehicles, according to Frost & Sullivan's report.
According to the prospectus, from 2021 to 2023, the total revenue of ZEEKR will be 6.528 billion yuan, 31.9 billion yuan and 51.67 billion yuan respectively. With the growth of revenue, ZEEKR's R&D investment has also risen. From 2021 to 2023, ZEEKR's R&D expenses will be 3.160 billion, 5.446 billion, and 8.369 billion yuan respectively. The high R&D investment has also given ZEEKR an urgent need for listing and financing.
But loss is a problem that cannot be ignored by ZEEKR. The prospectus disclosed that ZEEKR has been in a state of net loss in the past three years, with net losses of RMB 4.514 billion, RMB 7.655 billion and RMB 8.264 billion from 2021 to 2023, respectively. It can be seen that the listing may be a good medicine for ZEEKR to alleviate the dilemma of losses.
As the fastest rising dark horse of new cars, ZEEKR has naturally attracted the favor of many investors.
In August 2021, the newly established ZEEKR announced the completion of a $500 million Pre-A round of financing, with participation from five ecological partners, including Intel Capital, CATL, Bilibili, Hongshang Group and Boyu Capital. At that time, ZEEKR's post-investment valuation was about $9 billion.
In February last year, ZEEKR announced the completion of a $750 million Series A financing, with a post-investment valuation of $13 billion. The round was co-invested by Professor Amnon Shashua, founder of Mobileye, CATL, Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Commerce Fund, and Quzhou Xin'an Intelligent Manufacturing Fund.
Specifically, Mobileye, the chip giant helmed by Professor Amnon Shashua, can be called an old giant in the autonomous driving industry. ZEEKR and Mobileye are also deeply bundled, and the intelligent driving chips carried by its models ZEEKR 001 and ZEEKR 009 are from Mobileye.
The power battery giant CATL does not need to be repeated. According to the data, CATL and ZEEKR signed a five-year long-term strategic cooperation agreement in August 2022. At present, CATL's world-first mass-produced version of the Kirin battery has also been mass-produced and installed on the ZEEKR 009 and ZEEKR 001 models.
Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Commerce Fund and Quzhou Xin'an Intelligent Manufacturing Fund are all state-owned investment institutions from Guangzhou, Ningbo and Quzhou, respectively. ZEEKR said that the above three companies will assist ZEEKR to integrate its rich industrial resources and help ZEEKR further expand in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.
It is worth noting that the shrinking valuation of ZEEKR IPO is also in front of us. Looking at it, the myth of the high valuation of new car-making forces is cooling down in the past two years, and the stock prices of car companies such as NIO and Xpeng have fallen by about 80%. Market investors are becoming more cautious, and it is inevitable that the valuation of ZEEKR IPO will fall.
For ZEEKR, going public does not mean going ashore.
In 2024, the car is very volatile
Domestic electric vehicles are taking over the world
The car-making rivers and lakes are still very lively.
At the beginning of the year, He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng Motors, emphasized in a letter to all employees that this year is the first year for Chinese auto brands to enter the "sea of blood" competition, and it is also the first year for the knockout competition. On the same day, Geely Automobile Group CEO Gan Jiayue also said in a letter to all employees that 2024 will be the most volatile year for the auto market, "volume price, volume products, volume service, volume traffic".
As a result, a round of price war started first.
In February this year, BYD launched the Qin PLUS Glory Edition and the Destroyer 05 Glory Edition, with the starting price both reduced to 79,800 yuan. Subsequently, a number of car companies followed up, AITO Wenjie announced that the price of the new M7 entry version - M7 Plus large five-seat rear-wheel drive model was adjusted to 229,800 yuan, a reduction of 20,000 yuan; Tesla also reduced the price of Model 3/Y/S/X in Chinese mainland by 14,000 yuan; Xiaomi SU7, which was launched in March, set the starting price at 215,900 yuan, and the number of locked orders reached 88,063 by the end of April, staging a hot scene.
The fight was fierce. The Ideal L6 was officially released in April this year, with a retail price of 249,800-279,800 yuan, becoming the first model of Li Auto within 300,000 yuan. The NIO sub-brand Ledao will also be launched in the near future, focusing on the 250,000-level pure electric SUV market. Coincidentally, Xpeng Motors will also launch a new brand of A-class cars in the 100,000 to 150,000 range.
However, it is worth being vigilant that car companies are competing to bargain, and the profit margin of the automobile industry is gradually declining. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the profit margin of the auto industry in the first two months of this year was 4.3%, while the profit margin of the overall industrial enterprise was 4.7%, and the auto industry is still low in comparison.
It can be seen that "price for volume" is not the best choice. Going overseas is regarded as one of the ways to break the involution of the industry.
As we all know, in the era of fuel vehicles, overseas auto brands firmly grasp the right to speak; Nowadays, Chinese car companies are no longer taking doctrines, but have become providers of new energy vehicle technology, and more and more Chinese brands are leading the new energy track.
Taking Ningbo, where ZEEKR headquarters is located, as an example, from January to February this year, Ningbo Port exported more than 5,000 new energy vehicles, with a value of 450 million yuan. Compared with 2023, the export models of new energy vehicles at Meishan Port will be further expanded, with an increase of 20%, and now cover more than 40 brands.
"High-end brands and passenger cars going overseas will continue to burst out of new opportunities." Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, predicted this in his latest speech. As far as the eye can see, more and more Chinese new energy vehicles have gone abroad and begun to be sold to almost every corner of the world, driving on the streets of overseas foreign lands.