Huitong Energy plant, fast 200 Millionen Yuan auszugeben, um Photomask-Projekte mit dem "Chip-Guru" durchzuführen.

On the evening of August 11, Huitong Energy (600605.SH) announced that the company plans to acquire a 7.43% stake in Xinghuaxin (Shaoxing) Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xinghuaxin") through equity transfer and capital increase, with a total transaction consideration of 195 million yuan. The transaction includes the acquisition of a 1.82% stake in Xinghuaxin for 45 million yuan and the subscription of new registered capital of 100 million yuan in Xinghuaxin for 150 million yuan.

Meanwhile, Huitong Energy plans to further increase its capital or acquire more equity in Xinghuaxin after the monthly delivery volume of its first-phase production line reaches the designed full-capacity level. The capital increase price shall not be higher than 2 yuan per share.

It is reported that Xinghuaxin was established in November 2022 and is located in Shaoxing, Zhejiang. It is an enterprise engaged in the manufacturing of semiconductor photomasks. Its semiconductor photomask industrial project was selected as a major industrial project in Zhejiang Province in 2024. The counterparty of this transaction, Shaoxing Xinxing Enterprise Management Co., Ltd., is the controlling shareholder of Xinghuaxin, and its legal representative is Zhang Rujing, known as the "Godfather of the Chip Industry".

It is worth noting that Xinghuaxin started production and sales in the fourth quarter of 2024, but its current production capacity and sales are still in the ramp-up period and it has not yet achieved profitability. This investment in Xinghuaxin through equity transfer and capital increase is also Huitong Energy's first investment layout in a semiconductor industry entity company.

After the news was released, on August 12, Huitong Energy hit the daily limit during the call auction stage, then quickly fell below the water and fluctuated. It closed at 38.66 yuan per share, down 5.20%, with a turnover rate of 8.21%.

Why did Huitong Energy, whose main businesses are home improvement, property services, and house leasing, choose to bet on the semiconductor industry? And why did it take a fancy to Xinghuaxin, which makes photomasks?

Accumulated capital through house expropriation and laid out in hard technology after the "change of ownership"

Public information shows that Huitong Energy has been involved in light industrial machinery and wind power. In 2019, when the wave of wind power rush installation came, it chose to withdraw in time and turned to the real estate industry. As the real estate market declined, the company divested its real estate development business in 2023 and recovered 616 million yuan in cash. Currently, Huitong Energy's main businesses only include light asset businesses such as house leasing, property services, and home improvement.

In recent years, Huitong Energy's performance has been stable. After divesting its real estate development business, its revenue in 2024 increased by 5.03% year-on-year to 137 million yuan. The latest performance forecast shows that its non - recurring profit attributable to the parent company in the first half of 2025 did not change significantly, but the net profit attributable to the parent company shrank to 17 million - 24 million yuan, a year - on - year decrease of 70.76% - 79.29%. The main reason for the change was that it received reward subsidies for house expropriation in the same period last year.

With the advancement of Shanghai's urban renewal, Huitong Energy has had many properties expropriated and compensated in recent years. After having sufficient cash, it has also been constantly conducting financial management. As of the end of the first quarter of 2025, Huitong Energy's monetary funds reached 650 million yuan, while at the end of last year, it was as high as 1.46 billion yuan.

A relevant staff member of Huitong Energy told Time Finance that since structured deposits and large - value certificates of deposit were purchased in the first quarter, some funds were not included in the monetary funds. "By paying attention to the historical periodic regular reports, you can also see that we regularly buy financial products. It's just that we redeemed them at the end of last year, so all the funds were reflected in the monetary funds."

With hundreds of millions of funds lying on the account, Huitong Energy found a new use for them after the arrival of a new actual controller - investing in the semiconductor industry.

At the end of 2024, Deheng Jiayue and Xinde Jinyong spent 1.2 billion yuan to acquire 100% of the equity of Tibet Dejin from Lvdu Real Estate and became the indirect controlling shareholder of Huitong Energy. Its actual controller also changed from Tang Yuxiang to Huang Ying.

According to the announcement and Tianyancha information, Huang Ying once served as a partner of Shanghai Weihao Chuangxin Investment Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Weihao Chuangxin"). The company was established in 2020 and is invested in and self - held by Weil Semiconductor Co., Ltd., the leading enterprise in the Chinese semiconductor industry. It focuses on equity investment in high - quality enterprises in the pan - semiconductor field. According to Juzi IT data, Weihao Chuangxin has invested in 43 projects in advanced manufacturing and artificial intelligence, with a total investment of 2.168 billion yuan.

Public data shows that Huang Ying has been engaged in venture capital for more than a decade, and his main investment directions are TMT, large - scale health, and intelligent manufacturing. The background of the actual controller also gives Huitong Energy a clear direction for its investment path.

Since the second quarter, Huitong Energy has invested in various semiconductor industry funds through its subsidiary, Shanghai Huidexinyuan Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Huidexinyuan").

In April this year, it invested 30 million yuan in Anhui GaoXin Yuanhe Puhua Private Equity Investment Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership) (hereinafter referred to as "Yuanhe Puhua"). The fund invests in the top ten emerging industries in the Yangtze River Delta region, focusing on the hard - technology field centered on semiconductors and intelligent manufacturing. It completed industrial and commercial registration and registration with the Asset Management Association of China in June.

In May this year, it announced an investment of 30 million yuan in the fund to be established and managed by Guoyi (Ningbo) Private Equity Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Guoyi Investment") to increase its investment layout in the fields of key semiconductor materials and advanced packaging.

The partners selected by Huitong Energy are all experienced semiconductor investment veterans.

According to the official website, the fund manager of Yuanhe Puhua is Yuanhe Puhua Tongxin (Suzhou) Investment Management Co., Ltd., which was established in 2018 and is engaged in the investment in the semiconductor industry chain and related upstream and downstream industries. The scale of its historically managed funds exceeds 15 billion yuan, and it has invested in more than 200 integrated circuit projects in total. So far, it has nurtured more than 50 listed companies such as Weil Semiconductor Co., Ltd., Huada Jiutian, Hengxuan Technology, and Huaqin Technology.

Guoyi Investment was established in 2019. It mainly focuses on early - and mid - stage investments and invests around the two industries of "semiconductors and high - end equipment", focusing on the three sub - sectors of "key materials", "key software", and "key equipment". It has managed funds with a scale of nearly 10 billion yuan successively.

Joined hands with the "Godfather of the Chip Industry" and laid out in the photomask industry

"In terms of the competitive landscape, whether in terms of scale or the iteration of technological products, the Chinese semiconductor industry has made rapid progress... The entire industry has basically entered a comprehensive era of mergers and acquisitions + innovation." Niu Junling, a partner of the Yuanhe Puhua Fund, said in an interview with the media in May this year.

A research report from Guosen Securities pointed out that the semiconductor industry is experiencing the triple resonance of the "macro - policy cycle, industrial inventory cycle, and AI innovation cycle", and a valuation expansion market is expected. The high prosperity of the industry has attracted a large amount of capital to pour in intensively. For example, North Huachuang spent 3.182 billion yuan to acquire a 17.9% stake in Xinyuan Micro to strengthen the synergy on the equipment side; Huada Jiutian plans to acquire the controlling stake in Xinhe Semiconductor to improve the layout of the EDA tool chain; Lutong Technology spent 530 million yuan to acquire a 51% stake in Damo Semiconductor at a high premium and entered the equipment field across industries.

For Huitong Energy, with relatively limited growth space in its existing business, finding a new business growth point has become a necessity, and photomasks have become its "favorite".

Photomasks, also known as reticles, are considered the "negatives" of the photolithography process and are the third - largest consumables in the front - end semiconductor materials. Their precision is directly related to the precision and yield of chips. However, the global photomask market has long been monopolized by leading enterprises such as Dai Nippon Printing in Japan and Photronics in the United States, and the domestic localization rate of high - end photomasks is less than 20%.

Against this background, Zhang Rujing, the "Godfather of the Chip Industry", led the establishment of Xinghuaxin at the end of 2022 and made breakthroughs in the photomask field. Before that, he had successively founded semiconductor companies such as SMIC, Xinsheng Semiconductor (a wholly - owned subsidiary of Shanghai Silicon Industry Group Co., Ltd.), and Qingdao Core - Tech Semiconductor Co., Ltd., filling the gaps in domestic semiconductor sub - fields.

Time Finance learned that Xinghuaxin started construction in March 2023, produced its first semiconductor photomask sample in April 2024, and entered the production stage at the end of 2024, showing rapid development. Currently, Xinghuaxin has achieved the R & D and production of photomasks for all processes of 40nm and above, with a monthly production capacity of over 1,000 pieces. It is expected to reach full - capacity production in the first phase by the end of this year. After the planning of the second - phase production line is completed, the monthly production capacity will increase to 3,000 pieces.

When the first sample was "born", Zeng Zhenrui, the general manager of Xinghuaxin, once said that with the further improvement of the company's production capacity, it will become one of the largest photomask bases in China in the future. It is expected that after full - capacity production, it can produce 36,000 semiconductor photomasks annually, achieving annual sales of 1.7 billion yuan and a profit of 500 million yuan.

It is worth noting that this is also Huitong Energy's first direct investment in a semiconductor enterprise after its investment layout in hard - technology fields such as semiconductors and intelligent manufacturing.

It is understood that investing in Xinghuaxin also meets Huitong Energy's transformation needs. On the one hand, the semiconductor photomask field where Xinghuaxin is located has huge market potential, and the domestic substitution demand is urgent. Through investment, it can share the industry growth dividends. On the other hand, with the help of the technical and industrial resources of Zhang Rujing's team, it can quickly enter the core links of the semiconductor industry and reduce the cycle and risks of independent R & D. In addition, Xinghuaxin is located in the Yangtze River Delta region, which accounts for more than 60% of the country's integrated circuit industry share, with obvious industrial cluster advantages, which is conducive to integrating regional resources and achieving coordinated development.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Time Finance APP" (ID: tf - app), author: Zhou Li, published by 36Kr with authorization.