Li Shufu will win the 10th listed company

E-commerce newspaper Pro

2024-05-17 14:56Posted on the official account of Guangdong E-commerce News

In the year of the sixtieth year, Li Shufu continued to win IPOs

Not long ago, Geely Holding Group's new energy vehicle brand "Zeekr" was successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming the fastest automotive technology company from its establishment to listing - it took only three years.

According to the prospectus, from 2021 to 2023, ZEEKR's revenue will be 6.53 billion yuan, 31.90 billion yuan, and 51.67 billion yuan respectively; The net loss was 4.51 billion yuan, 7.66 billion yuan and 8.26 billion yuan respectively.

Although the cumulative loss in three years exceeded 20 billion yuan, from the current domestic new energy vehicle industry, it itself needs to use the scale to share the cost - as long as the car sales go up, it is only a matter of time before it becomes profitable.

In the past three years, ZEEKR's automobile sales revenue has reached 1.54 billion yuan, 19.67 billion yuan, and 33.91 billion yuan respectively, and the number of cars delivered in 2023 has reached 118685, which obviously has a good prospect.

On the first day of listing, ZEEKR opened at $21 and quickly exceeded $30 two trading days later, attracting many investors at home and abroad.

ZEEKR listed Source: ZEEKR official WeChat

Just a few days later, Cao Cao, an online car-hailing brand that was also spun off from Geely Holdings, updated its prospectus. If nothing else, Cao Cao will also be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the near future.

Many people may not know that Cao Cao Travel is actually a brand owned by Geely. In its prospectus, it is emphasized that "incubated by Geely Group, one of the world's largest automotive groups, we have gradually developed into a leading mobility technology platform in China. ”

From 2021 to 2023, Cao Cao's revenue will be 7.153 billion yuan, 7.631 billion yuan, and 10.668 billion yuan respectively; The losses were 3.007 billion yuan, 2.007 billion yuan and 1.981 billion yuan respectively.

Although it is also a three-year loss of nearly 7 billion, the good news is that Cao Cao's gross profit in 2023 will turn positive for the first time, reaching 615 million yuan. Coupled with the "big mountain" of Geely, Cao Cao is not short of money and has a good chance to make a profit.

It is also worth noting that in addition to the background of the "Geely Department", the actual controller of Zeekr and Cao Cao Travel is also the same - Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group.

According to the prospectus data, before the IPO of ZEEKR, Li Shufu's shareholding ratio reached 80.4%, and after the IPO was issued, it would be diluted to 74.6%; Prior to Cao Cao's IPO, Li Shufu's wholly-owned Ugo Investment Limited held about 83.9% of the shares — and he had an absolute say in both companies.

After the listing of ZEEKR, the number of listed companies under Li Shufu has reached an astonishing 9, and Cao Cao is expected to become the 10th - the remaining 8 listed companies are Geely Automobile, Volvo Cars, Polestar, ECARX, Qianjiang Motorcycle, Hanma Technology, Lifan Technology, and Lotus, which just IPO in February this year.

It is foreseeable that the Li Shufu family, which ranked ninth in the "2023 Hurun Report" with a wealth of 175 billion yuan last year, will continue to rise this year with the birth of three new listed companies.

"Madman" Li Shufu and his business empire

Li Shufu, who was born in June 1963, is about to celebrate his 61st birthday.

Looking back on his experience over the past few decades, he can be called a business legend.

Since he officially started his business at the age of 19, Li Shufu has opened a photo studio, a refrigerator accessories factory, a refrigerator factory, and also sold building materials and scooters, and has repeatedly shown a high business talent.

In 1997, Li Shufu officially stepped into the automotive industry, bent on building a domestic car that more Chinese could afford.

At that time, Li Shufu shocked the four people with the famous sentence "A car is just four wheels, two sofas, and an iron shell", and was called "car maniac". In the nearly ten years since then, Geely Automobile has become the largest private automobile company in China.

But as Li Shufu said: "My dream is to build the safest, most environmentally friendly and most energy-efficient car, so that Chinese cars can go all over the world, not all over the world." "Geely's success at home alone is not enough for Li Shufu.

In August 2010, Geely received all the physical and intangible assets of Volvo Car Group from Ford for US$1.8 billion, including 3 processing plants, more than 10,000 patents, a complete R&D system, supply chain, employee training system, safety test center, large-scale test site, and a global sales and service network.

Geely acquires Volvo

Geely, which has only been in the automotive field for 13 years, has staged a drama of "snake swallowing elephants", and has "borrowed money" to acquire a world-renowned car brand with a history of 80 years, which has undoubtedly become a legendary acquisition case.

And it is worth mentioning that Ford spent $6.45 billion to take Volvo in 1999. By the time it was ready to sell in 2008, Volvo had a pre-tax loss of $1.5 billion and even owed Ford $3.5 billion in debt.

Although Volvo had reached a very dangerous point at that time, Li Shufu believes that Ford and Volvo spent tens of billions of dollars on new energy technology in ten years, and it is "very worthwhile" to buy it for $1.8 billion.

A few years later, Li Shufu recalled the acquisition of Volvo and admitted that one of the main purposes was to let Geely Automobile get better technology, which was a "strategic merger and acquisition".

Under Li Shufu's leadership, Geely has made large-scale acquisitions or investments in the automotive industry around the world. For example, the acquisition of London Electric Vehicle (LEVC), the acquisition of 51% of the shares of the British luxury sports car brand Lotus for 51 million pounds, the acquisition of a 34.02% stake in Renault Korea for 1.4 billion US dollars, and the acquisition of a 7.6% stake in the British ultra-luxury performance brand Aston Martin and became the fourth largest shareholder......

Even outside the automotive field, as long as it is an upstream and downstream enterprise in the industry, Li Shufu has also shown great interest.

Geely Brand Matrix Source: Geely Holding Group's official website

For example, the incubation of "Cao Cao Travel", although it is also related to Geely's new energy vehicles, is not something that mainstream car manufacturers will do;

In addition, Li Shufu acquired Meizu in 2022, according to his own words: "Positioning high-end mobile phones can give full play to the long-term accumulated experience of Geely and Volvo ecosystems in the fields of design, research and development, high-end intelligent manufacturing, industrial chain management, and the global layout advantages of the space-time Daoyu low-orbit satellite network under construction." ”

It is not difficult to imagine that as Li Shufu expands his business territory step by step, and even touches more and more industries, we may see the 11th and 12th listed companies continue to appear under Li Shufu's command in the future.

There is no way back, and the road of entrepreneurs is not easy to take

For the vast majority of entrepreneurs, it may be a very high achievement to be able to run a business to go public in a lifetime.

Li Shufu already has 9 listed companies, and the 10th is about to come out. However, behind this envy of others' achievements, he also carries a lot of pressure.

Just like Jack Ma once said, the biggest mistake in his life was to create Alibaba. Because he originally just wanted to start a small company, he didn't expect it to be so big, and he was busy every day but didn't have the opportunity to enjoy life.

Later, Ma Yun said in a program: "I am busy with work all day long and have no time to spend with my family, and my wife says that I don't belong to her, I belong to Alibaba." If I had to live again, I would never want to do that. ”

Ma Yun's words were just "Versailles" in the eyes of many people, so they laughed it off.

But it is undeniable that the reason why Ma Yun "regrets" is not unreasonable, especially when he once said frankly that when you have 1 million or 10 million, the money is yours. But if there is a hundred million, a billion, the money is not yours, because at this time wealth also represents responsibility.

Like Jack Ma, Li Shufu had similar thoughts many years ago.

In an episode of CCTV's "Dialogue" in 2010, the host threw a question to Li Shufu: "If you go back and make a choice, would you still be willing to be an entrepreneur or a poet?" ”

Li Shufu was a guest on "Dialogue" Source: CCTV Finance

Li Shufu said frankly: "An entrepreneur is a person who needs to take on a lot of responsibilities, and I think it is very hard to take on a lot of responsibilities. ”

"Now I regret it," Li Shufu said, but changed his words again, "We have already embarked on this road, and we have faced so many responsibilities, we can't say that we will throw away the responsibility and stop doing it, so we have to continue to walk and go down this road." ”

For him, the so-called number of listed companies may be just a number. Li Shufu, who is constantly being pushed to a higher place, may not be able to imagine the responsibilities he needs to bear.

Author | Li Songyue

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