Yesterday evening, the news of "2 billion well-known private equity Ruifengda running away" quickly circulated in the financial circle, once again triggering a crisis of confidence in the market for private equity products. In November last year, it was only half a year since the FOF private placement China Soft New Power explosion incident.
The full name of Ruifengda is Zhejiang Ruifengda Asset Management Co., Ltd., and its registered place is Room D202-71, Block D, Carnival International Plaza, Wuxing District, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province; The actual office location is on the 5th floor of Building 8, Lane 727, Wuxing Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai.
Today, Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" went to Ruifengda's office in Shanghai and found that the private equity run away was basically true. Some investors have gone to Building 8, Lane 727, Wuxing Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai to defend their rights, and some have already reported the case, and the relevant departments are organizing investor registration.
At the same time, Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" noticed that Ruifengda's employees were moving things one after another. When leaving the office building, there will be a report to check the belongings moved by the employees, and if they are personal belongings, they will be released normally, and if they are company belongings, they are not allowed to be taken out.
Photo: Phoenix "Eye of the Storm"
It is understood that some investors initiated redemption applications in March, but the funds have not yet arrived. However, to the surprise of the market, "Ruifengda was still raising funds last week". Up to now, most of the Ruifengda investors contacted by Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" are relatively calm and "don't want to say too much".
1. How is the money taken away?
According to the information disclosed on the official website of the Asset Management Association of China, Ruifengda's management scale is 2 billion to 5 billion yuan, and its business types are private securities investment funds and private securities investment FOF funds.
The market was shocked that a private equity fund with a formal record and reached such a scale suddenly ran away. In particular, I was surprised, "Isn't the money in the escrow account?" How did you run away? ”
Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" contacted a number of industry insiders with such questions. Among them, Zhang Sheng, the former head of the agency who has cooperated with a number of private equity institutions, said, "It is not difficult to get the money out of the escrow account!" For example, a company like Ruifengda, one of its main businesses is FOF, which invests money in other funds, and these funds can be high-net-worth. Ruifengda has its own custody, but the next layer of funds it invests in may not have custody, if not, it is not difficult to move the money out. ”
"Even if it is not a FOF, it is not difficult to directly invest in stocks and then pour out the money, and the most common one is to collude with listed companies - for example, to invest in stocks on the New Third Board. Because the liquidity of NEEQ stocks is very poor, it is easy to manipulate the stock price. Private equity institutions can easily raise the stock price by inverting or several private equity companies falling together, and then take over at a high level, and finally share the money with the listed company. ”
For example, the price of a stock G on the New Third Board is only 1 yuan, and there is basically no liquidity. At this time, the stock price can be greatly increased through a small amount of trading volume, for example, private placement A buys a lot from private placement B at a premium of 30%, and without the participation of other traders, then the stock will rise by 30% on the same day. Repeating this reversal operation between private equity A and B (or more partners) can increase the price of stock G several times or even dozens of times. In the end, private placement A or private placement B (or private placement AB together) takes over a large number of shares of the shareholders of the listed company at a high level, and the money goes into the pockets of the shareholders of the listed company, and private placement A or B (or together) then shares the money with the shareholders of the listed company.
"This kind of gameplay has been going on for many years, but when the market is good, there are more players, as long as no one deliberately smashes the market, and someone has always taken over the market, there is basically no risk, and this game can be circulated. Now the market is not very good, and some private equity companies have broken their own capital chains, and they can't play anymore, and this short chain itself is broken. There will be a situation where the product has a good return, but cannot be redeemed. Zhang Sheng further said.
2. Ruifengda has newly entered the top ten circulating shareholders of a number of NEEQ companies
So does Ruifengda have a situation where the stock price is raised by inverting the new third board stocks, and then taking over for others? Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" combed through the annual reports of a number of listed companies on the New Third Board with very low liquidity but soaring stock prices, and indeed found that some ———of the top ten circulating shareholders of the company have newly entered two private placements with a high degree of operation at the same frequency, one of which is Ruifengda, and the other is Jiangsu Ruizhu Private Equity Fund Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Ruizhu).
At the same time as the two private placements bought a large number of them, a number of natural person shareholders of the relevant listed companies completed their withdrawal.
Among them, agriculturalist technology is particularly typical. The top 10 circulating shareholders disclosed in the annual report of the stock are all occupied by the products of Ruifengda and Ruizhu, and the shareholding ratio is relatively even. The total number of shares held by the two private placements accounts for 80.06% of the outstanding shares.
The first, fourth, fifth and seventh shareholders of Agrocarpus Technology are all products of Ruizhu, with shareholding ratios of 10.36%, 10.31%, 10.14% and 9.79% respectively; The second, third, sixth and eighth shareholders are all products of Ruifengda, with shareholding ratios of 10.31%, 10.31%, 10.05% and 8.79% respectively.
During the same period, the eight natural person shareholders of Nongjiang Technology completed the withdrawal, and the total number of exited shares accounted for 54.48% of the outstanding shares.
Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" found that Agrocarpus Technology had zero transactions for a long time from May 9, 2023 to July 19, 2023, with a turnover of only 6,868 yuan and a transaction price of only 0.17 yuan on July 19. Then, it was not until August 11 that there was another trading volume, with a turnover of 96,000 yuan, and the transaction price rose to 0.25 yuan, a surge of 47.06%. The last time the stock was traded in 2023 was on December 18, and only 1 lot was traded throughout the day, but the amount was as high as 6,666 yuan, that is, the stock price has skyrocketed to 66.66 yuan.
In the second half of 2023, there will only be 36 transactions in the second half of 2023, of which the opening price is the same as the closing price in 32 days, but the stock price has skyrocketed by 39,111.76% (ex-rights), and if the statistics are based on the previous weighting, the increase is as high as 48,914.71%, and the total transaction amount is only 41.4572 million yuan.
According to incomplete statistics from Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm", the new third board stocks similar to Agrocarpus Technology are: Hejia Tianjian, Weifuji, Youlian Shengye and Haotian Energy Storage. Hejia Tianjian only traded one lot on July 3, 2023, with an amount of only 390 yuan, but the stock soared by nearly 40% on the same day.
Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" watchmaking
Among the top ten circulating shareholders of Hejia Tianjian, Ruifengda and Ruizhu each entered 3 new seats, with a total shareholding of 48.47% of the total outstanding shares, and seven natural person shareholders withdrew during the same period, with a total of 62% of the outstanding shares.
At the same time, Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" found that there is a high degree of overlap between the names of the natural person shareholders who have withdrawn from Nongjiang Technology and Jia Tianjian. Five natural person shareholders named Liu Hongyun, Zhang Chaozhu, Zhang Wen, Zhang Dong and Zhang Shirong also appeared in the list of withdrawn shareholders of Hejia Tianjian at the same time.
At the same time, Zhang Shirong appeared in the list of withdrawn shareholders of three stocks: Nongjiang Technology, Hejia Tianjian and Haotian Energy Storage. Zhang Shirong is also the only shareholder of Optimal Energy Storage who withdrew from the top 10 outstanding shares in the previous reporting period, with 50,000 shares withdrawn, accounting for 0.71% of the outstanding shares.
Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" watchmaking
Youlian Shengye's exiting shareholders are slightly different. Compared with the previous reporting period, only two of the top 10 shareholders of outstanding shares have withdrawn, and they are not natural persons, and they are two private placement products. However, one of them is Ruifengda's product (Zhejiang Ruifengda Asset Management Co., Ltd. - Ruifengda Ruixue No. 3 Private Securities Investment Fund), which withdrew 170,000 shares, accounting for 12.25% of the outstanding shares.
There is also 1 stock similar to the situation of the aforementioned 5 stocks, and the name is Sairongxin. Neither Ruifengda nor Ruizhu appeared in the list of the top 10 circulating shareholders of Sairongxin. However, the top 10 circulating shareholders are all newcomers, and the largest circulating shareholder is named Riying Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd. The number of shares held is 999,900 shares, accounting for 10.2% of the outstanding shares.
An investor once said in an interview with the media, "Riying Holdings and Ruifengda are husband-and-wife shops, and Sun Wei, the actual controller of Ruifengda assets, and Li Min, the actual controller of Riying Holdings, are husband and wife." Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" found that at present, the actual control relationship between the two companies cannot be seen from the equity relationship. However, there are some connections between the two companies – for example, the two companies have the exact same office phone number and email address. In addition, in the relevant reports of Riying Holdings at the end of 2023, Ruifengda was described as "Ruifengda, the capital sector of Riying".
3. The private placement routine is deep
Up to now, there is no direct evidence to prove that Ruifengda ran away by pulling up the stock price by inverting with other private placements and taking over the order at a high level. However, some industry insiders revealed to Phoenix.com's "Eye of the Storm" that the routine of private equity harvesting investors is far more than this.
Typical routines include:
1. Sell dog meat on the head of a sheep. Although the private equity institution has opened a custodian account in accordance with regulatory requirements, the payment account provided to the customer is not a custodian account, but their own account, the name looks similar, but in fact it does not match the escrow account, and the private equity institution can directly transfer the money. If the investor's money does go into the escrow account, then the private placement itself cannot be transferred.
Second, multi-layer nesting. This is relatively more common, where the private equity firm does open an escrow account, and the investor's money is also put into the escrow account, but the private equity firm invests the money in the next layer of the private placement product through multiple layers of nesting, such as FOF. If this layer of private equity products is invested in equity investment, the money will be directly transferred to the account of the invested company, and the money will be transferred out. For the multi-layer nesting of private equity investment, the state has strengthened supervision and requires that there can only be a maximum of two layers of nesting.
3. Pick-up. As mentioned above, private equity institutions invest funds in illiquid stocks such as the New Third Board, join forces with other institutions or individuals to raise the stock price, and then take over at a high level and share the money with partners. Investors can see high yields, and the stocks are also in the escrow account, but the money cannot be redeemed.
For such a deep routine, Zhang Sheng said, "There are a lot of ways to play private equity, but most of them still have to be secretive. Everyone in the circle knows how to play it, but no one says it. As for ordinary investors, it is best not to touch financial products that they don't understand, just watch the excitement. ”