In the automotive industry, there is a saying that is widely circulated, "The automobile factory works for the battery factory, and the battery factory works for the raw material factory." ”
The main revenue of the largest battery factory CATL in 2018 was 29.6 billion yuan and the net profit was 3.3 billion yuan; the main revenue in the first half of 2021 was 44 billion yuan (the annual forecast is expected to exceed 90 billion), and the net profit in the first half of 2021 was 4.4 billion yuan, and the main business and net profit doubled in 3 years.
Although the largest raw material factory, Ganfeng Lithium, does not have such a scale, the speed is really amazing. According to the performance forecast released on October 14, Ganfeng Lithium achieved a substantial increase in net profit attributable to the mother in the first three quarters of this year by 430.14% to 678.41%, and is expected to reach 2.082 billion yuan - 2.572 billion yuan.
At a time when raw materials are soaring, the joke about part-time work becomes real. Especially this year, the price of global lithium resources can be described as rapid. Taking battery-grade lithium hydroxide as an example, the price of the product has now grown to 178,500 per ton, compared with 70,000 per ton at the end of last year, and as low as 40,000 a few years ago.
No one wants to be a lifelong migrant worker, and when the opportunity to become a boss, even the most advanced migrant worker will not hesitate to turn his face.
As a result, one is the world's first metal lithium production capacity, sales accounted for more than 45% of the market share of Ganfeng lithium industry, one is the power battery global market share of the first Ningde era. On the surface, the two giant enterprises that belong to the upstream and downstream have begun a future-oriented battle in the east wind of a new energy.
White oil
In July 2021, Ganfeng Lithium announced that it would acquire Canada's "Millennium Lithium", which is engaged in exploration and development of lithium ore, for nearly 1.8 billion yuan.
It is worth noting, for scarce resources. Such an acquisition is not a foregone conclusion, even after a down payment of up to $10 million.
Regarding the acquisition, an insider of Ganfeng Lithium once said, "If it is difficult, our approval process in the overseas merger and acquisition process is relatively complicated, which makes us relatively disadvantaged when competing with overseas companies, which may affect the progress of the acquisition." We may raise our offers, or convince each other in some other way, to maintain our competitiveness and avoid falling behind other companies. ”
Subsequent developments did not go as smoothly as Ganfeng Lithium expected.
On September 30, Ganfeng Lithium issued an announcement that it had recently received a notice from Ganfeng International that because ML Company had received a "better offer" from an offeror competitor, and Ganfeng International had not chosen to raise the offer price within the agreed period, ML Company had unilaterally terminated its tender offer cooperation agreement with Ganfeng International and paid Ganfeng International a termination fee of US$10 million. After careful consideration, the Company has decided not to raise the tender offer.
Neither raising the offer nor lobbying stopped the aggressive opponent — the biggest battery factory seen as a migrant worker.
All along, Ganfeng Lithium has played the role of lithium resource processing, and will consider more input and output when acquiring minerals, if the premium is higher, it is not cost-effective for Ganfeng Lithium. In addition, Ganfeng Lithium has participated in many lithium mine projects through the form of equity participation, and there is no need for a mine to "fight to the death".
But for the Ningde era, the demand for upstream resources is far more urgent than ganfeng lithium industry, as a battery manufacturer, raw materials will become their own card neck existence, in such a throat, Ningde era no matter how much the cost to choke.
In the end, CATL acquired the company for C$377 million, and CATL agreed to compensate it for a $10 million liquidated damages it paid to Ganfeng Lithium. CATL said that this acquisition is an important measure for the company's supply chain layout, which will further ensure the long-term stable supply of lithium raw materials in CATL.
In fact, the tit-for-tat confrontation of the Ningde era is not the first time, on September 13, 2021, CATL issued an announcement that it intends to invest in the construction of a new lithium battery production and manufacturing base (Yichun) project in Yichun City, Jiangxi Province, with a total investment of no more than 13.5 billion yuan, and said that it will build upstream material production bases such as lithium carbonate in Yichun Economic Construction Development Zone and related counties and urban areas. This is not only Yichun, but also the largest investment project in the high-tech new energy industry in the whole of Jiangxi Province.
And this is the doorstep of Ganfeng Lithium industry for twenty years. As the lithium capital of Asia, Yichun has lithium resources that cannot be underestimated, and although Ganfeng Lithium is headquartered in Xinyu, Jiangxi, it has long been processing lithium metal in Yichun.
On April 8 this year, Ganfeng Lithium officially signed a contract to settle in Yichun Economic Development Zone for a new 7,000-ton metal lithium project with an annual output. It is reported that the project from January this year to the signing of the project today, only took more than two months.
Although the arrival of the Ningde era is not aimed at Ganfeng Lithium, the encounter between the two giants will always produce a bit of smoke.
In this regard, Yichun government personnel told the BC reporter: "Although the two companies have the layout of lithium resources here, but at present, their business areas are still different, there will be no greater competitive relationship, we welcome all powerful enterprises to settle in Yichun, and strive to create the best business environment for enterprises and serve enterprises." ”
At present, in terms of power batteries, CATL occupies about 30% of the market share in the world, ranking first, not only supplying almost all mainstream players of new energy vehicles in the Chinese market, including Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng, but also in the European market.
And this piece of fat produced by the battery does not only belong to the battery factory.
On August 5, 2021, less than a month after THE SIGNING OF MEMORANDUM between CATL and the Yichun Municipal Government. The board of directors of Ganfeng Lithium Industry passed the "Proposal on Ganfeng Lithium Battery Investment and Construction of a New Lithium Battery Project with an Annual Output of 15GWh", and agreed that Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Battery Technology Co., Ltd., a holding subsidiary of the Company, would invest 8.4 billion yuan in its own funds to build a new lithium battery project with an annual output of 15GWh.
Among them, the project company invested 3 billion yuan in Jiangxi Xinyu High-tech Industrial Development Zone to build a new lithium battery project with an annual output of 5GWh, and the project company that set up a new independent legal entity in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area invested 5.4 billion yuan to build a 10GWh new lithium battery technology industrial park and an advanced battery research institute project.
In fact, as early as March 2017, Ganfeng Lithium began trial production of lithium-ion power batteries. In August 2017, Ganfeng Lithium replied to netizens on the online interactive platform that the power battery project was in the stage of small batch production and had stable downstream customers. By the end of 2020, the annual report data shows that the production capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries in Ganfeng lithium batteries has reached 1GWh, and it is planned to expand production to 3GWh.
In the Ningde era, when sitting firmly on the throne of the big brother of power batteries, Ganfeng Lithium, the leader in the production of A-share lithium compounds, may not be satisfied with the title of "lithium king".
"Low-key introverted" and "gambling strong"
Looking at the resumes of the two founders, we were surprised to find that these two entrepreneurs of similar age had very similar but completely different experiences.
In 1967, Li Liangbin, the founder of Ganfeng Lithium, was born in an ordinary peasant family in Jiangxi, with an introverted personality, but fortunately he was very good at learning. Just a year later, Zeng Yuqun was born into an equally ordinary family in Lankou Village, Feiluan Town, Ningde City, Fujian Province.
After Li Liangbin was successfully admitted to the Department of Chemistry of Yichun Normal College in Jiangxi Province, he spent most of his time in the reference room, and in the eyes of other students, Li Liangbin really did not find other interests and hobbies except reading professional books.
In 1988, Li Liangbin was assigned to the jiangxi lithium factory research institute of the state-owned enterprise, starting as an ordinary employee. Because of his outstanding learning ability, he was soon promoted to deputy director and eventually became the director of the branch factory. However, in that era of encouraging "mass entrepreneurship", Li Liangbin also could not resist the impulse in his heart and resigned and went to the sea.
At the age of 30, Li Liangbin founded and served as the general manager of Xinyu Ganfeng Metal Lithium Factory, and began a difficult entrepreneurial road. Starting from the production of lithium metal, Li Liangbin, who has rich industry technology, did it handily and soon earned the first bucket of gold for entrepreneurship. Three years later, Ganfeng Lithium was established.
In 2010, Ganfeng Lithium successfully landed on the capital market and became the first listed company in the domestic lithium industry.
Subsequently, Li Liangbin began to acquire lithium ore resources on a large scale, and laid out in Australia, Argentina, Mexico, Ireland and China's Qinghai, Jiangxi and other places, forming a stable, high-quality and diversified raw material supply system. Six years ago, the company officially entered the lithium battery industry, and successively established a number of subsidiaries such as Ganfeng Battery, Ganfeng Electronics, Dongguan Ganfeng, Ganfeng Cycle, etc., expanding the downstream business to battery production and recycling, and achieving full coverage of the industrial chain.
Founded in the millennium, Ganfeng Lithium, after 20 years of development, has built a whole industrial chain of "lithium resource development - lithium salt deep processing - metal lithium smelting - lithium battery production - lithium battery recycling", with more than 40 kinds of lithium compounds and metal lithium products in five categories. Lithium compound production capacity in China, the world's third; lithium metal production capacity in the world's first, sales accounted for more than 45% of the market share.
In April 2021, the Forbes Global Rich List was released, and Li Liangbin ranked 807th on the list with a wealth of US$3.7 billion. As the founder of Ganfeng Lithium, Li Liangbin, with a wealth of 36.5 billion yuan, sat on the throne of the richest man in Jiangxi.
Regarding the enterprise, Li Liangbin said the most is the word "grassroots", "Most employees of Ganfeng Lithium Industry can be called 'grassroots' talents, they start from front-line technicians, while working, while exercising, growing with the enterprise." ”
If "grassroots" is the biggest common denominator between the two, Zeng Yuqun walks a completely same path.
Unlike Li Liangbin, 17-year-old Zeng Yuqun was admitted to the department of naval engineering of the prestigious Shanghai Jiao Tong University. In 1989, at the age of 21, Zeng Yuqun graduated from university and was assigned to work at a state-owned enterprise. This is the job that most people dream of, but Zeng Yuqun is restless in his bones, and he does not like the days when state-owned enterprises look at the head.
After only 3 months of work, Zeng Yuqun ran to Guangdong, the forefront of reform and opening up, and worked as an engineer at the Dongguan Xinke Magnetic Power Plant. By chance, several nobles, liang Shaokang, president of the world's largest magnetic and electric supplier SAE, and Dr. Chen Tanghua, a senior executive of the company, in 1999, the three of them founded New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (ATL), which is the predecessor of the Ningde era.
Later, when he encountered the outlet of new energy vehicles, Zeng Yuqun separated the power batteries of the former company and established the current Ningde era.
This is actually very similar to the experience of many entrepreneurs earning the first pot of gold, at the beginning, they all need to rely on fighting to get out of place. However, when the Ningde era occupied an important strategic ecological niche, Zeng Yuqun laid out the entire industrial chain.
Compared with Li Liangbin, Zeng Yuqun, who is the most "migrant worker" in the material factory, is probably much richer. In the past three years, the stock price of CATL has risen from near 30 yuan to a maximum of 614 yuan, soaring 20 times. In today's Ningde era, the total market value is close to 1.4 trillion yuan. Zeng Yuqun's net worth reached a staggering $49 billion, surpassing the "two horses" (Ma Yun, Ma Huateng) and the new second richest man in China.
Almost all corporate leaders will hang a painting and calligraphy in the office to express their motto. It is worth noting that in Zeng Yuqun's office, we do not see some traditional Confucian idioms, or the "love to fight to win" that Fujian businessmen yearn for, and the line "gambling is strong" is particularly eye-catching.
For many years of entrepreneurship, Li Liangbin has been emphasizing: "If there is no end to thousands of roads in the world, then those who insist on going in one direction will definitely go further." ”
Low-key and introverted Li Liangbin has been engaged in the chemical industry for decades, believing in adhering to one direction to go forward, while Zeng Yuqun is studying and reading ships, but the work is an electronics factory, seeing the outlet of new energy and changing to batteries, the whole process is relying on a gambling word.
I just don't know this gamble on "lithium", what kind of sparks are rubbed out by the Ningde era and Ganfeng lithium industry in Jiangxi and even on the global stage?