With a market value of 460 billion yuan, Zhongji Xuchuang has become a limited partner.
Jiemi LP of the investment community learned that recently, Zhongji Xuchuang Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongji Xuchuang") announced its participation in the Guotai Haitong Zhongji Xuchuang Industrial Fund. The total scale of the fund is 1.5 billion yuan. Among them, Zhongji Xuchuang intends to contribute 354 million yuan with its own funds, making it the largest limited partner (LP) of the fund.
Everyone must be familiar with Zhongji Xuchuang. It is one of the most watched listed companies in the market this year. It was formed by the merger of Zhongji Equipment and Suzhou Xuchuang in the early years. Now, riding on the wave of AI, its stock price has tripled in four months, and its latest market value exceeds 460 billion yuan.
Quietly, a hidden LP has emerged.
Just now, Zhongji Xuchuang made an investment
According to the announcement, this fund is the Guotai Haitong Zhongji Xuchuang Technology Equity Investment Fund (Kunshan) Partnership (Limited Partnership) (the specific name is subject to industrial and commercial registration). The total scale is 1.5 billion yuan, and the fund's duration is 8 years.
This fund adopts the dual - general partner (GP) model. One of the GPs is Guotai Junan Innovation Investment, established in 2009. According to its official website, it is a wholly - owned private equity investment management subsidiary of Guotai Haitong Securities, responsible for managing various alternative assets such as private equity, merger and acquisition funds, and new infrastructure. The cumulative management scale exceeds 70 billion yuan. In the establishment of this new fund, Guotai Junan Innovation Investment contributed 355 million yuan, making it the largest shareholder.
The other GP, Qianrong Capital, was established in 2011. It is an investment institution headquartered in Suzhou, mainly focusing on early - and mid - stage investments. According to Qichacha information, the institution has made 80 external investment projects, mainly in sectors such as semiconductors and advanced manufacturing.
Actually, it can be seen from the fund's name that this is a fund closely related to Zhongji Xuchuang. In terms of investment, Zhongji Xuchuang contributed 354 million yuan, with a subscription ratio of 23.6%, making it the largest LP.
It can be said that Zhongji Xuchuang has invested in two old friends this time. Here is a detail. In 2008, Dr. Liu Sheng, a returnee, returned to China to start a business and established Suzhou Xuchuang, focusing on the optical module field. Later, it received support from many institutions, including Qianrong Capital.
In 2016, Zhongji Equipment from Shandong was successfully listed on the Growth Enterprise Market. As the dividends of the traditional electromechanical market gradually declined, it was looking for a second growth curve, and Suzhou Xuchuang came into its view. That year, Zhongji Equipment acquired Suzhou Xuchuang for 2.8 billion yuan. Shareholders including Qianrong Capital received generous returns and exited.
After the acquisition, Suzhou Xuchuang was listed indirectly, and Zhongji Equipment was renamed Zhongji Xuchuang.
With a global AI competition, Zhongji Xuchuang, as a "water seller", became popular, and its stock price soared. Data shows that the funds under Guotai Haitong Asset Management, Guotai Junan Jidexin Two - Year Holding Hybrid A and Guotai Junan Jideming Hybrid, bet on Zhongji Xuchuang's stocks, holding a total of 428,300 shares. This year, Zhongji Xuchuang's stock price has risen sharply. Calculated at the latest stock price of about 414 yuan, the corresponding market value of this part has exceeded 100 million yuan.
Back to the establishment of this fund, the LP camp also includes Shenzhen TaiChenGuang Communication Co., Ltd., which is also a listed company in the optical module field, with a latest market value of about 24 billion yuan. In addition, state - owned assets from Kunshan and Jiangxi, as well as insurance funds, have joined.
In terms of investment direction, this fund should directly or indirectly invest in enterprises in specific industries, including but not limited to optical communication, data centers, automotive electronics, robotics, and related industrial chains. It is not difficult to see that this will be an important measure for Zhongji Xuchuang to further integrate industrial chain resources and layout cutting - edge technologies.
As Zhongji Xuchuang explained in the announcement the reason for becoming an LP this time, on the one hand, it continuously expands the company's investment layout in the above - mentioned fields, promotes the sharing and integration of advantageous resources, realizes the integration of industry and capital, and enhances core competitiveness. On the other hand, the investment fund can achieve capital appreciation through project investment, serving the company's strategic development goals, so as to better achieve the company's sustainable development.
Not short of money
An old friend in the venture capital circle
Actually, this is not Zhongji Xuchuang's first time to be an LP.
It is not only a stock that has created super wealth in the A - share market this year, but also a well - known market - oriented LP among primary market investors. By sorting out the announcements of listed companies, it is found that as early as the "Zhongji Equipment" period, this company began to get involved in the LP field.
Especially since 2020, its investments have been more frequent, and it has participated in the establishment of more than ten funds so far. It is worth mentioning that Liu Sheng has repeatedly reciprocated his early investors. The original shareholders such as Lightspeed China Partners, Kaifeng Ventures, and Datai Capital have all received investments, and of course, Qianrong Capital is included this time. In addition, it has also invested in well - known institutions such as Zhongke Chuangxing and Zheshang Ventures.
Just like the consistent choice of many listed companies, after having abundant funds, they often get involved in the primary market as LPs to find business growth curves and integrate industrial resources. Investing as an LP most directly reflects a company's financial strength.
This is especially evident in Zhongji Xuchuang. In 2022, it was the year when Zhongji Xuchuang appeared as an LP the most. Data shows that through continuous investment in R & D and expansion of production capacity, in this year, Zhongji Xuchuang and Coherent ranked first in the global market share, and its global market share of 400G optical modules reached 50%. In terms of revenue, in 2022, Zhongji Xuchuang's revenue increased by 25.29% year - on - year, reaching 9.642 billion yuan.
Now, benefiting from the explosion of AI computing power demand, high - speed optical modules, as supporting products for GPUs, are in high demand, and Zhongji Xuchuang's optical module shipments have increased sharply. In 2024, Zhongji Xuchuang's performance exceeded 5 billion yuan for the first time, with revenue reaching 23.8 billion yuan. Making a lot of money riding on the wave of AI, Zhongji Xuchuang has become more "generous" in its investments. In the past, its investment in jointly - established funds was mostly in the tens of millions, but now it has contributed hundreds of millions at once.
Of course, the outside world is also more concerned about the wealth myths. Zhongji Xuchuang's stock price started to soar in June, rising from around 100 yuan to a maximum of 457 yuan, with a cumulative increase of more than 200% this year.
With the company's stock price at a high level, the shareholders chose to "cash in". Not long ago, Zhongji Xuchuang announced that its controlling shareholder, Zhongji Investment, plans to reduce its holdings of the company's shares by no more than 5.5 million shares in the next three months, accounting for 0.49% of the company's total share capital. Calculated at the closing price on September 29, the cash - out amount from this share reduction exceeded 2.2 billion yuan.
Even earlier, the company's shareholder, Suzhou Yixingfu Enterprise Management Center and its concerted actors, had also cashed out hundreds of millions of yuan through share reduction. According to public information, the actual controller of Yixingfu is Liu Sheng, the chairman and president of Zhongji Xuchuang.
Surprised by the wealth, one can't help but sigh. Liu Sheng recalled in an interview that in the early days of entrepreneurship, the company also went through a difficult period and once faced a survival test. Later, with the support of investors, it finally successfully got through the trough, leading to today's market value of 460 billion yuan.
This article is from the WeChat public account "Jiemi LP", author: Wu Qiong, published by 36Kr with authorization.